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SOME COLONIAL 
HOMESTEADS ^ ^ 
AND THEIP STOPIES 
Bv Ncirion Harkind 



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NEW YORK AND LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAH'S SONS 

1597 



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Copyright, 1S97 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 



Zbc "Rnicfccrbocker press, "Kew Korft 




PREFACE. 



'X'HE stones that make romantic the Colo- 
1 nial Homesteads described in this work, 
were collected during visits paid by myself to 
those historical shrines. The task was a labor 
of love throughout, and made yet more de- 
lightful by the generous kindness of those to 
whom I applied for assistance in gathering, 
classifying, and sifting materials for my book. 
Family records, rare old histories, manuscript 
letters, valuable pictures, and personal remi- 
niscences, were placed at my disposal, with 
gracious readiness that almost deluded me, 
the recipient, into the belief that mine was the 
choicer blessing of the giver. The pilgrimage 
to each storied home was fraught with pleasures 
which I may not share with the public. 

I have conscientiously studied accuracy In 
the historical outlines that frame my sketches, 



VI 



Preface. 



o-ivino- to Tradition, "the elder sister of His- 
tory," only such credit as is rightfully hers. 

Thanks are due to Harper & Brothers for 
permission to reprint trom //crr/^rr's JJ'ttkly 
the chapter entitled "Jamestown and Williams- 
burg." That upon \'arina was published in 
part and under another title in i8q2 in T/ie 
Cos)?io/>olitLi n Magazine. 



IMariox Hari.axd. 



New York. 1S07, 






-^'^ 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — Brandon — Lower and Upper . . i 

II. — Westover 33 

III. — Shirley ....... 63 

IV. — The Marshall House .... 84 

V. — Cliveden 104 

VI. — The Morris House, Germantown, 

(Philadelphia) 131 

VII. — The Schuyler and Colfax Houses, 

PoMPTON, New Jersey . . . 141 

VIII. — The Van Cortlandt Manor-House . 171 

IX. — Oak Hill upon the Livingston Manor 201 

X. — Oak Hill upon the Livingston Manor 

(Concluded) 221 

XI. — The Philipse Manor-House . . 239 

XII. — The Jumel Mansion. On Washington 

Heights, New York City . . 276 



VIU 



Contents. 



XIII. — The Jumel Mansion. On Washington 
Heights, New York City. (Con- 
cluded) ...... 306 

XIV. — The Smith House at Sharon, Conn. . 327 

XV. — The Pierce House in Dorchester, 

Massachusetts 346 

XVI. — The " Parson Williams " House in 

Deerfield, Massachusetts . "♦■ . 375 

XVII. — The " Parson Williams " House in 
Deerfield, Massachusetts. (Con- 
cluded) 403 

XVIII. — Varina. The Home of Pocahontas, 432 

XIX. — Jamestown and Williamsburg . .471 





ILLUSTRATIONS, 



Faces 



Hall in Jumel Mansion 

Lower Brandon 

Harrison Coat-of-Ar^is 
" Portrait of Colonel Daniel Parke 
*" From Tarnished Frames Impassive 

Looked down on Us" 
' Upper Brandon ..... 

' Byrd Coat-of-Arms .... 

Westover ...... 

Portrait of Colonel William Evelyn Byrd 

OF Westover . . - , 
Portrait of "The Fair Evelyn" 
Colonel Byrd's Tomb in the Garden at West 
OVER ....... 

"A Curious Iron Gate " . . . . 

. Berkeley ....... 

Carter Coat-of-Arms ..... 

Portrait of "King Carter" 
Portrait of Judith Armistead (Wife of King 
Carter) ...... 

Shirley ....... 

. Portrait of Elizabeth Hill Carter 
(" Betty ")....... 



Frontispiece 

3 
6 



17 

21 

29 
34 
ZS 

39 
45 

51 

59 
61 
66 
67 

71 

74 

81 



Illustrations 



' Marshall House, Richmond, Va. 
• Portrait of Chief-Justice Marshall 
William and Mary College, Williamsburg 
Va., of which John Marshall was -a 

Graduate 

Chew Coat-of-Arms 

Portrait of Chief-Justice Benjamin Chew 

Frcjn thi origiual paitiiiti^^ in t)u Xational Museum 
Philadtlphia. 

Portrait of '' Peggy " Chew 

Reproduced iciih permission of the Century Company 
from the Century Magazine. 

Portrait of Colonel John Eager Howard 

From a painting by Chester Harding. 

Cliyeden 

; Chew Coach 

.The Morris House, Germantown (Phila 
delphia) 

" The Coziest of the Suite "... 
. Washington's Headquarters in Pompton, X. J 
."The Pleasant Camping-Ground *' . 
' Schuyler Coat-of-Arms .... 
. The Schuyler Homestead. Pompton, X. J. 
. " The Long, Low. Hip-Roofed House" 

Van Cortlandt Coat-of-Arms . 

Van Cortlandt Manor- House . 

Loop-HoLE and Brant's Portrait in Dining 
Room 

Fireplace in Library . 

The " Ghost-Room " 

. LlYINGSTON COAT-OF-ArM 

.Portrait of Robert Liyin 

OF LlYINGSTON >L\NOR . 



iSTON, First Lord 



205 



Illustrations 



XI 



Portrait of Gertrude Schuyler (Second 

Wife of Robert Livingston) 
Robert Livingston's Crest 
Portrait of Philip Livingston (Second Lord 

OF THE Manor) 

Portrait of John Livingston (Last Lord of 

THE Manor) 

Oak Hill (on the Livingston ^L\NOR) 

The "Old Kaus" 

Philipse Coat-of-Arms .... 
Philipse Manor- House (Yonkers, X. Y.) . 
Fireplace in the ** Washington Chamber " of 

Philipse Manor-House 
Mantel and Section of Ceiling in Drawing 

Room of Philipse Manor-House . 
>L\ntel and Mirror of Secoxd-Story-Front 

Room i\ Philipse Manor-House . 
Memorial Tablet in Philipse Manor-House 
Roger Morris Coat-of-Arms 
Portrait of Roger Morris 
Portrait of Henry Gage Morris. Rear 

Admiral in the British Xavy (Son of 

Roger and Mary Morris) . 
Portrait of Mary (Philipse) Morris (^at the 

Age of 95) ...... 

Portrait of Aaron Burr .... 

The Tlmel Mansion 

Portrait of Madame Jumel 

Smith Crest 

Portrait of John Cotton Smith 

Smith Homestead at Sharon, Connecticut 



109 



--0 

-35 
^43 



^59 



20 



269 

-73 
276 

2 So 



'97 
309 



337 



XI 1 



Illustrations 



Corner of Library ix Smith Homestead . 

Pierce Crest ...... 

Pierce Homestead. Dorchester, Mass. (Built 
IX 1640) 

NiNE-DooRED Parlor ix Pierce Homestead 

** The Middle Parlor " .... 

*'The Ripest Bread ix America " . . 

" The Queex of the Evexixg " . 

Williams Crest 

Door from Sheldox House, Hacked by Ixdiaxs 

Graves of Parsox Williams axd Euxice, his 
Wife. (The Tomb ox the Right is that of 
Mrs. Williams) ...... 

' Old Williams Chi'rch axd Parsoxage 

♦ Cedar Chixa-Closet from *' Parsox Williams " 

Hoi'SE . 

. "Parsox Williams " House ix Deerfifld. Mass. 
' Champxey House axd Studio . . . . 

JoHX Smith's Coat-of-Arms 

PoK iRAir of Captaix JoHx Smith 

Tower of Old Chi'rch, Jamestowx, Virginia. 
IX which Pocahoxtas was Married . 

Portrait of Pocahoxtas . . . . . 

Grave of Powhatax. ox James River 

"Old PowDER-HoRx " 

Portrait of Mary Caky. Washixgtox's First 
Love . 

Ixterior of Bri'iox Parish Church, Williams- 
burg, Va. ....... 

Portrait of John Raxdolph of Roanoke (at 
THE Age of 30) 

From o^riginal portrait by Gilbert Stttart. 



346 

349 

359 

367 
37 1 
376 

3S9 



399 
405 

411 

4-3 
4-7 
43- 
437 

45 7 
463 
470 
4S1 



491 
495 



SOnC COLONIAL HOME5TEAD5 



Some Colonicil Hoiiiestecids 
Qi^cl their Stories 



BRANDON-LOWER AND UPPER 

ENGLISH civilization, of which the first 
shoot was set in Virginia at Jamestown 
in 1607, followed the course of the James, — 
formerly the Powhatan River — to the head of 
navitration at Richmond with marvellous ra- 
pidity when one considers the age and the ob- 
stacles encountered by the settlers. So fondly 
did it cling to the banks of the goodly stream 
that grants of estates with this water-front, 
and including the fertile meadows and prim- 
eval forests rolling back for miles inland, were 
in eager request until there were none left in 
the gift of the Crown. The local attachments 



2 Some Colonial Homesteads 

of the colonists in this favored region, who 
called their lands after their own names, would 
seem to have been transmitted with homes and 
plantations. Generation has succeeded gene- 
ration of what is known in the mother-coun- 
try as "landed gentry," estates passing from 
father to son, or — failing male issue — to 
daughters and nieces, until the names and 
styles of the Randolphs of Tuckahoe and 
Presque Isle, the Byrds of Westover, the Har- 
risons of Berkeley and Brandon, the Carters 
of Shirlev, came to have the sitrnificance of 
baronial titles, and were woven inextricably 
into the checquered romance we call The His- 
tory of \ irginia. 

Lower Brandon — named in affectionate 
memory of Brandon, England — is situated on 
tlie left bank of the James as one sails up the 
river from Norfolk, and is distant about ninety 
miles from Richmond. The original grant 
was made to John Martin. " Martin's Bran- 
don " is still the title of the old church in which 
are used chalice and paten presented by Major 
John Westhrope. The tomb of Elizabeth 
Westhrope, near by, bears the date of 1649. 
The font is lettered, " Martin's Brandon 
Parish, 1731." 



1 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 5 

The Brandon plantation passed from John 
Martin's possession to the estate of Lady 
Frances Ingleby, and a deed from her con- 
veyed it in turn to Nathaniel Harrison of Sur- 
rey Co., Virginia. His name appears in the 
Westover IVISS. (to which we shall presently 
refer further) in conjunction with those of 
** His Excellency Alexr. Spotswood, Governor 
of Virga" and ''Colo. William Robinson, a 
Member of the House of Burgs of Virga." 
The three were deputed to conduct negotia- 
tions with the Five Nations, September 1722. 
Colonel Harrison Is therein styled, " a Member 
of His Majestie's Council of Virga." 

The southeast and older wing of the manor- 
house was built by him about 171 2; a few 
years later he erected the northwest wing. 
These, with the main dwelling, are of dark 
red brick, imported from England. Benjamin 
Harrison, his son and heir, was a room-mate 
of Thomas Jefferson at William and Mary 
College, Williamsburg. The intimacy was 
continued in later years, and after Mr. Jeffer- 
son's return from France he planned the 
square central building of his friend's resi- 
dence. One suspects that the proprietor's 
taste may have modified his accomplished 



Some Colonial Homesteads 




associate's designs, when we compare the in- 
convenient incongruities of Monticello with the 

solid, sensible structure 
before us. The one ec- 
centricity is the orna- 
ment on the peak of 
the roof — a white coni- 
cal cap, set about with 
drooping pennate leaves. 
It may be a pine-apple 
or a pointed variety of 
Dutch cabbage. 

The house was com- 
paratively modern when 
Benedict Arnold entered the mouth of the 
James, striking right and left with the mad 
zeal of a newly fledged pervert. He landed 
at Brandon, destroyed crops, stock, poultry, 
and fences, allowed his men to use cows as 
targets, and was guilty of other fantastic atro- 
cities, the traditions of which are preserved by 
those who had them from the lips of eyewit- 
nesses. At a subsequent date of the Revolu- 
tion a body of English troops under General 
Phillips bivouacked here cii route for Peters- 
burg, at which place he died. His remains lie 
in Blandford Cemetery. 



HARRISON COAT-OF-ARMS. 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 7 

Various modest freeholds purchased from 
small farmers in the neighborhood, were added 
by Nathaniel Harrison to the original Martin 
grant, until the plantation was one of the larg- 
est and most valuable on the James. Yellow 
jasmine, periwinkle, and the hardy bulbs 
known to our o^randmothers as " butter-and- 
eggs," are still found in places where no house 
has stood for a century, brave leal mementoes 
of cottage and farmstead levelled to make way 
for the growth of the mighty estate. 

Children were born, grew up, and died in the 
shadow of the spreading roofs ; accomplished 
men of the race stood before counsellors and 
kings, served State and nation, and left the 
legacy of an unsullied name to those who 
came after them. Women, fair and virtuous, 
presided over a home the hospitality of which 
was noteworthy in a State renowned for good 
cheer and social graces. Presidents and their 
cabinets ; eminent statesmen of this country ; 
men and women of rank from abroad ; neigh- 
bors, friends, and strangers found a royal wel- 
come in the fine old Virginia house. The 
rich lands, tilled by laborers whose grand- 
fathers had occupied the comfortable " quar- 
ters " for which Brandon was celebrated, 



8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

produced harvests that added yearly to the 
master's wealth. A neat hospital for the sick 
and infirm, the services of a regular physician, 
the ministry of a salaried chaplain and, most 
of all, the parental care of the owners, made 
of the family and farm-servants a contented 
and happy peasantry. It was a golden age 
of feudalism ui^on which the cyclone of an- 
other war swooped with deadlier effects than 
when Arnold directed the destructive forces. 

In 1863, Mrs. Isabella Harrison, the widow 
of Mr. George Evelyn Harrison, late propri- 
etor of Hrandon. was warned by sagacious ad- 
visers that it would be prudent to remove her 
famil)-, with such valuables as were portable, 
to Richmond. Reluctant to leave home and 
dependants, she delayed until danger of inva- 
sion was imminent before she took a house in 
town and filled it with furniture, pictures and 
other effects sent up the ri\-er from the planta- 
tion. There were lett behind her brother, I^r. 
Ritchie, — a son of the famous " Xestor of the 
\^irginia Press." Thomas Ritchie of T//r Eii- 
quircr. — two white managers, and 150 negroes, 
— field-hands and their families. — the house- 
servants having accompanied the ladies to 
Richmond. 



1 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 9 

At one o'clock, one January mornino- in 
1864, Dr. Ritchie was awakened by a knock- 
ing at the door, and answering- from a win- 
dow was tokl that the visitors were T^ederal 
officers. Hastily arraying himself in an old 
pair of hunting-trousers, the first he could lay 
his hands upon, with dressing-gown and slip- 
pers, he admitted the unseasonable arrivals. 
They were respectful, but peremptory in their 
assertion that he must go with them Immedi- 
ately to the gunboat moored at the wharf. 
That he was a non-combatant, and simply act- 
ing here as the custodian of his widowed sis- 
ter's property ; that he was far from well and 
not in suitable garb to meet strangers, availed 
nothing to men acting under orders. He and 
the two managers were hurried down to the 
vessel, and from the deck saw the flames of 
burning " quarters," barns, hayricks, out- 
houses, 2500 barrels of corn and 30,000 lbs. 
of bacon, rolling up against the black heav- 
ens. The negroes were routed from their 
cabins, the women walling, the men paralyzed 
with terror — all alike persuaded that the Day 
of Judgment had come — and forced on board 
the transports. In the raw cold of the winter 
morning they were taken down to Taylor's 



lo Some Colonial Homesteads 

Farm, near Norfolk. The )ounger men were 
enlisted in the army, the older men and women 
were set to work on the farm. Most of them 
returned to Brandon at the close of the war. 

Dr. Ritchie and his companions were con- 
fined in a cell at Fort Monroe with several 
negToes, until the news of his arrest reached 
Cxeneral Butler, who gave him pleasanter 
quarters and offered him many civilities. 

" I ask only for a sheet of paper and an en- 
velope, that I may write to my sister," was 
Dr. Ritchie's reply to these overtures. 

A Baltimore paper printed next da}' a sen- 
sational account of the Affack upon Brandon, 
heading- it A Bloodless Jl'ciory. It was the 
intention of the otticer in charge of the expe- 
dition, the report further stated, to return and 
complete the work ot demolition. 

This article was read that morning by ^Irs. 
Stone, Mrs. Harrison's sister, in Washington, 
whose husband, a distinguished phvsician. was 
Mr. Lincoln's medical ad\"iser and friend. 
Newspaper in hand. Dr. Stone hastened to 
the President, and laid the case before him. 
The name and fame of Thomas Ritchie, the 
wheel-horse of the Old Democratic Partv. 
were known to Mr. Lincoln, with whoni 



Brandon — Lower and L^pper 1 1 

humanity always stood ready to temper 
justice. 

''That, at least, they shall not Ao'^/^ he 
said, on reading the threat of a return to 
Brandon, and instantly telegraphed orders to 
Fort Monroe to that effect. 

Mrs. Harrison and her sister. Miss Ritchie, 
had been deterred by the unfavorable aspect 
of the weather from coming down the ri\er 
on the very night of the attack, as they had 
planned to do, and thus escaped the worst 
terrors oi the scene. Arriving two da\"s later. 
they found that the troops had been with- 
drawn, pursuant to the President's command. 
They had made the most of their brief season 
of occupation. Xot a habitable building was 
left standing except the manordiouse. and that 
had been ritled of all the mistress left in it. 
The few pictures which were too bulk)* to 
be removed to town, had been cut from the 
frames and carried off. Some family portraits 
are still missing — the sadly signiticant note, 
Taken by tJic cuciin' in iS6^, recording their 
loss in the catalogue of the Brandon Gallery. 
Every window pane was shattered. Those 
inscribed with the autographs of J. K. Pauld- 
ing, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore and his 



12 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Cabinet secretaries. Edward Everett, etc., 
etc., were not spared. The wainscoting was 
ripped from the inner walls : the outer shut- 
ters were riddled and hacked and, in aiming- 
at the quaint, nondescript ornament on the 
roof, the marksmen had battered bricks and 
cement into holes that remain until this day. 

Comment is superfluous on this, the darkest 
page in the annals of a house that should be 
the prieie of intelligent civilization. 

'* War is war, " says our own brave Sher- 
man. " and we cannot define it. \\'ar is cruel, 
and we cannot retine it." Upon those whose 
political rancor and greed brought on the frat- 
ricidal strife, let the odium rest of these and 
other calamities which a united people is anx- 
ious to forget. 

With a sigh of grateful relief I turn to Bran- 
don as I saw it on a mid-May day when the 
stor)- of the invasion was thirty years old. 
Lawn anci garden separated the mansion from 
the river. Trees, lopped and shivered by bul- 
lets and scorched by tire, were swathed with 
ivy : honeysuckles rioted in tropical luxuri- 
ance over bole and bough, and were pruned 
daily lest they should strangle rose-trees that 
were full of buds. The yellow jasmine, most 



Brandon — Lowe/ and Upper 13 

odorous of its tribe, leaped to the top of the 
tallest trees and cast abroad streamers laden 
with bloom ; faint purple clusters of wistaria 
hung from wall and trellis and branch : a 
golden chain of cowslips bordered the walks ; 
glowing patches of tulips nodded saucy heads 
in the river breeze that drank the dew from 
their cups. A great pecan-tree, the planting 
of which, almost a hundred years ago, was for- 
mally recorded in the Plantation Year-book, 
towered on one side of the lawn, and in its 
shadow bloomed a bed of royal purple iris, the 
roots of which were brought from Washing- 
ton's birthplace. 

Ever}- square has its stor\- : alley and plot, 
tree and shrub, are beaded with hallowed asso- 
ciations as the lush grasses were strung with 
dew-pearls on that sweet-scented May morning. 

Standing on the river-bank facing the house, 
the double-leaved doors of which were open, 
front and back, we saw it framed in a vista of 
verdure, and loc^king through and beyond the 
central hall caught glimpses of sward that was 
a held of cloth-of-gold with buttercups ; masses 
of spring foliage, tenderly green, mingled with 
wide white-tented dogwood, transplanted into 
a ** pleasaunce," which is cleft by the same 



14 Some Colonial Homesteads 

vista running on unbroken for three miles until 
the Hues, converging with distance, are lost in 
the forest. There are seven thousand acres 
in the estate as at present bounded, eighteen 
hundred of which are in admirable cultivation, 
under the skilful management of Major Mann 
Page, Mrs. Harrisons near relative, who has 
been a member of her household for thirty 
years. Except for the dents of bullets in the 
stanch walls, the exterior tells nothing of the 
fier\- blast and rain that nearlv A\Touo^ht ruin 
to the whole edifice. Out-building-s and en- 
closures have been renewed, peace and prom- 
ise of plenty rejoice on every side. 

The house has a frontage of 210 feet, the 
wings being joined by covered corridors to 
the main building, projected by the architec- 
tural President. The corridors are a single 
stor\- in height, the rest of the structure is 
two-storied. Broad porches, back and front, 
give entrance to the hall, which is large and 
lightsome, well furnished with bookshelves, 
tables and chairs, and hung with pictures, a 
favorite lounging-place. winter and summer, 
with inmates and gT.iests, Like all the old 
mansions on the James. Brandon is double- 
fronted. The carriage-drive leads up to what 



Brandon — Lower and I'ppcr 15 

would bo callod tho backdoor ; the other main 
entrance faces the river. I o the ri^ht. as we 
enter the hall from the ** pleasaunce " and 
drive, is the dining-room. Buffets, tilled with 
old family-plate, handsome and curious, stand 
on either side ; the vases on the mantel were 
used at the Lafa\ette banquet at Rich- 
mond in 1S24: on the wall are valuable 
portraits. 

Conspicuous anions- these last is one of 
Daniel Parke, who in the campaign in Idan- 
ders, 1704, was aide-de-camp to the Puke of 
^larlborough. He is named in the Puke's des- 
patch to Oueen Anne announcing the victory 
of Blenheim, as *' the bearer. Col. Parke, who 
will give her an account of what has passed." 
After receiving gracious audience trom the 
Oueen, he made so bold as to ask that her 
portrait might be given to him instead of the 
customary bonus of five hundred pounds. It 
was sent to him set in diamonds. He was 
appointed Governor-Ceneral ot the Leeward 
Islands (^\\\ 1. ) in 1700. and was received with 
marked favor bv the inhabitants on his arrival 
at Antigua. His popularity was, however, 
shortdived. In 1710, a mob. excited to frenzy 
bv irregularities in his administration, and his 



1 6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

cruel arrogant temper, surrounded the Govern- 
ment House, and he was killed in the tumult. 
His daughter was the tirst wife of Colonel 
William Evelyn B\rd of Westover, and the an- 
cestress of a long- line of prominent Mrginians, 
whose employment of the patronymic " Parke " 
as a Christian name, indicates their descent. 

The painting, a tine one, gives us a three- 
quarter length likeness of a man in superb 
court costume, standing, hand on hip. by a 
table on which are heaped several rich medals 
and chains. He wears the Queen's miniature, 
surrounded with brilliants ; the figure is sol- 
dierh', the face is haughty, and would be hand- 
some but for a lurking, sinister devil in the 
dark eyes that partially exculpates the popu- 
lace in his violent taking oft'. 

The door of the drawing-room is opposite 
that of the dining-parlor, the hall h'ing be- 
tween. Both apartments have the full depth 
of the house, and are peopled to the thought- 
ful guests with visions trom a Past beside 
which our busy To-day seems tame and jejune 
enough. 

General William Henry Harrison, President, 
for one little month, of these United States, 
spent his Sundays at Brandon while a school- 




COLONEL DANIEL PARKE. 

FROM A PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 19 

boy in the neighborhood. Filhnore laughed 
with his Cabinet here over the memorial of his 
farmer-boyhood set up that day in the harvest- 
field, a wheat-sheaf bound dexterously by the 
hands of the Chief Magistrate of the nation, 
and long preserved on the plantation. 

Another incident connected with Mr. Fill- 
more's visit to Brandon pleasingly illustrates 
the oneness of interest that existed between 
employers and family servants. George, the 
Brandon cook, was a fine specimen of his 
class. A master of his craft, stately in manner 
and speech, he suffered no undue humility to 
cloud his consciousness of his abilities. A 
family festival in honor of a clan anniversary 
had filled the old house with guests for several 
days, and tested the abundant larder to what 
seemed to be its utmost possibilities. On the 
very day that saw the departure of the com- 
pany, a communication was received by Mrs. 
Harrison informing her that the Presidential 
party might be expected on the morrow. She 
summoned George and imparted the startling 
news. 

He met it like an ebony Gibraltar, 
" Very well, madam, your orders shall be 
obeyed." 



20 Some Colonial Homesteads 

'' But, Geors^e ! can \Ye be ready for them ? 
There will be about thirty persons, including 
the President of the United States and his 
Cabinet." 

Gibraltar relaxed measurably. The lady's 
apprehensions appealed to his chivalric heart. 
It was his duty to allay them. 

'' \'er\- true, madam. But we must bear in 
mind that we are greatly blessed in our cook." 

The dignity, conceit, and periphrastic mod- 
esty of the rejoinder put it upon the family 
records at once. It is hardly worth our while 
to add that he nobly sustained the sublime 
vavmt. Aladdin*s banquet was not more deftly 
produced, and could not have given greater 
satisfaction to the partakers thereof. 

The present chef at Brandon is a grandson 
of this Napoleon. 

Hither. William Foushee Ritchie, his father s 
successor in the proprietorship and conduct of 
The Bnq^utrer^ brought the beautiful woman 
known to the public as Anna Cora Mowatt. 
who left the profession in which she had won 
laurels in two hemispheres, for the love of this 
honorable gentleman and a happy life m their 
Richmond cottage. Brandon was a loved re~ 
sort with his wife. A portrait, which, although 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 23 

a tolerable likeness, conveys to one who never 
saw her an inadequate idea of her pure, ele- 
vated loveliness, is here ; an exquisite statuette 
of Resignation, that once adorned her cottage 
parlor, is on the mantel. 

She has passed out of sight, and her noble 
husband, and the gallant procession of such as 
the world delighted to honor that talked, and 
thought, and lived in this stately chamber. 
From tarnished frames impassive faces lookc^d 
down on us as once on them, changing not for 
their mirth or for our sighing. The silver 
mirror is brought out and turned for us, that 
once flashed a sheet of light for this vanished 
company upon portrait after portrait. 

Upon the sweet, pensive face of Elizabeth 
Claypole, registered in the catalogue as " Lady 
Betty Cromwell," — only daughter of the Pro- 
tector. Her sitting attitude is languidly grace- 
ful ; her head is supported by a slim hand, her 
arm on a table. Her gown is of a dim blue, 
with flowing sleeves, and modestly decollete. 

Upon Jeanie Deans's Duke of Argyle, whose 
mailed corslet, partially visible under his coat, 
hints of the troublous times in which he lived. 

Upon the courtly form and regular features 
of the second Colonel Byrd of Westover, hang- 



24 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ine next to his dauohter, " The Fair Evelyn," 
whose dramatic story has place in the chronicles 
of Westover. 

Upon the owl-like e}'es, long- locks and be- 
nign expression of Benjamin Franklin, benig- 
nity so premeditate and measured that the 
irreverent beholder is reminded of the patri- 
archal Casby of Little Dorrit. The portrait 
was taken while he was envoy to France and 
presented by him to the then master of Brandon. 

Upon Charles ^Montague, Earl of Halifax, 
date of 1 66 1, and Sir Robert Southwell of the 
same year, boon-companions of Colonel Byrd 
during his sojourn in England. 

Upon Benjamin West's portrait of Colonel 
Alston of South Carolina. 

Upon the dark intellectual face of Benjamin 
Harrison, who married Miss Evelyn Byrd of 
Westover, niece of the Fair Evelyn ; and a 
half-score of other pictured notabilia, at the 
hearing of whose names we look suddenly and 
keenly at their presentments. 

blister Walthoe, Speaker of the House of 
Burgesses, was painted in his broad-brimmed 
hat. 

" Set me among vour dukes and earls with 
mv hat on m\' head, to sio-nifv that I am a 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 25 

true Republican who will uncover to none of 
them, and I will i^ive you the finest diamond 
ring to be bought in America," he proposed 
to Colonel Byrd. 

" Agreed ! " said the witty landholder, " and 
I will hang it over the door to show that you 
are taking leave of them." 

The stubborn, rubicund face, surmounted by 
the Republican chapeau, hangs yet above a 
door in the dining-room. The central diamond 
of the cluster that paid for the privilege of the 
protest, was worn until her death by Miss 
Harrison, only daughter of the venerated 
cJidtclainc who shines with chastened lustre, 
the very pearl of gracious womanhood, in the 
antique setting of Brandon. 

The Westover MS. is a larcre folio bound 
in parchment, copied in a clear, clerkly hand 
from the notes of Colonel Byrd of Westover, 
the chiefest of the three who bore the name 
and title. The first part is entitled : History 
of the Dividing Line, and Other Tracts. From 
the papers of William Byrd of Westover in 
Virginia, Esq. 

It is the report of an expedition of survey- 
ors and gentlemen who ran the Dividing Line 
between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728- 



26 Some Colonial Homesteads 

29, and is full of delightful reading, not only 
because of the pictures it gives of men and 
times in the author's day, but in the racy 
humor of the narrative. The second part has 
the caption : ^4 Journey to the Land of Eden, 
and other Traets, Anno 1733. A third paper, 
A Progress to the Mines, In the Year 1732, is 
perhaps the most entertaining of all. 

It begins, Sept. 18, 1732, after this wise : 

" For the Pleasure of the good Company of 
Mrs. Byrd, and her little Governor my Son, I 
went about half-way to the Falls in the Chariot. 
There we halted, not far from a purling 
Stream, and upon the Stump of a propagate 
Oak, picket the Bones of a piece of Roast 
Beef. By the Spirit which that gave me, I 
was the better able to part with the clear Com- 
panions of my Travels, and to perform the rest 
of my Journey on Horseback by myself. I 
reached Shaccoa's before 2 o'clock and crost 
the River to the Mills. I had the Grief to find 
them both stand as still for the want of Water, 
as a dead Woman's Tongue for want of 
Breath." 

These manuscripts were presented by the 
author's dauQrhter-in-law to " Georo-c Evelyn 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 27 

Harrison, the son of her daughter, Evelyn Byrd, 
who had married Mr. Benjamin Harrison of 
Brandon!' They were In the hands of Mr. 
Thomas Wynne, a Richmond printer, at the 
time of the evacuation of that city. For some 
time after the fire which burned up the print- 
ing offices, Mrs. Harrison feared they had 
been destroyed. They were found in Mr. 
Wynne's safe, unharmed, when it was cool 
enough to be opened. 

Upper Brandon, originally included in the 
Brandon tract, now adjoins that which is called 
in contradistinction, " Lower Brandon," the 
road thither winding through teeming fields 
and belts of forest-lands, and often along the 
river-edee. The house, a fine brick buildinof 
was erected about sixty years ago by William 
Byrd Harrison, and after his death was bought 
by Mr. George L. Byrd of New York city. 
It was cruelly damaged by Federal troops 
during the Civil W^ar, and has never been re- 
stored to its former condition. Major Charles 
Shirley Harrison, who has the general manage- 
ment of the estate, occupies bachelors' quarters 
in the central building. The rest of the 
spacious mansion echoes mournfully to the 



^S Some Colonial Homesteads 

footsteps of the chance guest ; the bits of 
antique furniture left here and there in the de- 
serted rooms make the eyes of the would-be 
collector glisten with greed and regret. The 
situation is commanding ; the grounds still re- 
tain traces of former beauty. A covered sub- 
terranean passage connects the kitchen in the 
right wing with the empty wine-cellar and 
the dining-room above. A secret staircase 
fonnerly wound from the vaulted passage to 
the upper chambers, but it was torn out by the 
soldiers, leaving a gaping- well. The other 
wing was in the old times fitted up as bache- 
lors' chambers. In the thought of the high- 
bred, bearded faces that once looked from the 
windows, the laughter and jest thrown back 
by the walls now broken, discolored, and dumb, 
the stillness and desolation of the closed rooms 
bring dreariness and heartache to the stranger- 
visitor ; wrino- from the soul of the native- 
born \'irginian a lament as bitter as the pro- 
phet's moan that the hurt of the daughter of 
his people was not healed. 

Beyond the ruined gardens lie woods so pic- 
turesque in glade and greenery, that one 
blesses anew the beneficent ministration of 
Nature and the lovino- haste with which, in 



Brandon — Lower and Upper 31 

this climate, she repairs the waste made in 
these and other ''pleasant places." 
In the dining-room hang several good pic- 
tures, — one a portrait of Colonel Byrd, another, 
by Vandyke, of Pope's Martha Blount. She 
led the crook-backed poet a dance with her 
tempers and caprices, but she does not look the 
termagant, as she queens it in this dismantled 
room, a spaniel at her feet, a roll of music in 
her hand, a harpsichord in the background. 

Less out of place here than the imperious 
beauty is a lacquered Chinese cabinet, black- 
and-gilt, that once belonged to Anne Boleyn. 
Syphers would barter a section of his immor- 
tal soul for it. 

It was while we waited in the porch for our 
carriage, hearkening to the " sweet jargoning " 
of the bird-vespers, that the pretty anecdote 
was told of Mrs. William Harrison's rejoinder 
to an English guest who asked to see the 
aviary from which came the warbling that 
poured into his windows from dawn to sunrise. 
Leading him to the backdoor, she opened it, 
and pointed to the grove beyond. 

'' It is there ! " she answered, merrily. 

Parting at the gate with the courtly cavalier 
who had guided us through the lovely bit of 



o- Some Colonial Homesteads 

woodland outlying- the gTounds. we drove in 
the sunset calm, back to Lower Brandon, ar- 
riving just in season to dress for dinner. 

Of the tranquil beauty of the domestic life 
within the ancient walls, I may not speak here. 
But the story of house and estate belongs to a 
country that should cherish jealously the record 
of the few families and residences which have 
withstood the wash of Time and Change, agen- 
cies that relegate the fair fashion of growing- 
old o-racefullv to a place amon^:- the lost arts. 




II 



WESTOVER 



Tl 1 1{ Plantation of W'ostover fuuls place in 
the annals of Colonial History as early 
as 1 022. Fhe orjo-inal o-rant was made to Sir 
lohn Paulet. Theodorick Hland was the next 
owner. An Kno-Hshman by birth, he was a 
Spanish merchant before he emi^^-rated to \ ir- 
ginia in 1054. He was one ot the KinL;'s Coim- 
cil in X'irginia, established himselt at Westover, 
g'ave ten acres of land, a court-honse and a 
prison to Charles Cit\- County, and built a 
church for the parish which occupied a portion 
of the gTaveyard on his plantation. He was 
buried in the chancel. A sunken horizontal 
slab, bearing- his name, marks the site of the 
sacred editice. 

The estate came into prominence under the 
reo-ime of the Bvrds. Henino*. in his S/c7//Urs 



34 Some Colonial Homesteads 

at Large, spells the name, Bird. Family tra- 
dition claims descent for them from a Le Brid, 
who entered England in 
the train of William the 
Conqueror, and it trans- 
it mits an ancient ballad, be- 



My father from the Norman 

sliore, 
With Ro\al AVilliam came." 




BYRD COAT OF ARMS. 



The first American Byrd — William — was 
born in London in 1653, and settled in Vir- 
ginia as merchant and planter in 1674. He 
bought Westover from the Blands, and died 
there in i 704. He held the office of Receiver- 
General of the Royal Revenues at the time of 
his death. His son, William Evelyn Byrd, 
succeeded to the proprietorship when thirty 
years of age, having been born March 28, 
1674. Two years later he married a daughter 
of Daniel Parke (see Lozucr Brandoii). She 
died in England of smallpox in 1716, leaving 
two daughters, Evelyn, who never married, and 
Wilhelmina, who became the wife of Mr. Wil- 
liam Chamberlayne, of Virginia. 



Wcstover 2>7 

Colonel Hyrd's second wife was Maria Taylor, 
an JMii^lish hc^ircss, and with her he; rclurnc;d 
to his native land after a sojourn of some years 
abroad. 1 lis father had built a house; at West- 
over in 1690. The son {proceeded now to build 
a oreater, choosing- the hnc:st natural location 
on lames River. The dwelling- of luiglish 
brick consisteel of one lari^e cc;ntral house, con- 
nected by corridors with smaller wind's, and 
was underrun b)' cellars that are models of 
solidit)' and spaciousness. The sloi)ino- lawn 
was defended ao^ainst the wash of the current 
by a river-wall of massive masonry. At ret^u- 
lar intervals buttresses, capped with stone, sup- 
j)()rted statues of life size. Ciardens, fences, 
out-houses, and conservatories were evidences 
of the owner's taste and means. His estate is 
said to have been " a Principality," and was 
augmented by his second wife's large fortune, 
wdiich included valuable landed pro|)erty in the 
neighborhood of London. Within his palatial 
abode were collected the treasures brought 
from England and the Continent. Among the 
pictures were the portraits now preserved at 
Lower and at Upper Brandon. They were 
removed to these houses when Westover passed 
out of the Byrd family. 



3^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

A partial list, (^taken from a W^estover MS.) 
is herewith oiveii : 

" Tortrait o( Sir Wilfred Lawson, by Sir Godfrey 
Knoller. One ot a progenitor of the Hyrd family by 
Vandyke. Oiike o\ Aru\le (jeanie Deans's friend). 
Lord Orrery and Sir Charles Wager, an English Ad- 
miral : Miss Hloiint, celebrated by Pope. Mary, IHieh- 
ess of Montague, daughter oi the Karl o\ Marlboro' and 
wife of John, fourth Duke of Montague. Governor 
Daniel Parke. Mrs. Puey Parke Byrd and lier daugh- 
ter Evelyn. Col. Hyrd and his second wife. Miss 'Pallor. 
The daughters of the second Col. Byrd." 

William l^velyn, second of the *' Byrd of 
W'estoxer" name and title, was the most emi- 
nent ot the line. 

One historian says of him : 

"A vast fortune enabled him to live in a stvle of 
hospitable splendor before unknown in Virginia. His 
extensive learning was improved by a keen observation, 
and ret'ined by an acquaintance and correspondence 
with the wits and noblemen of his day in England. 
His writings are amongst the most valuable that have 
descended from his era." 

Another : 

" He was one ot tlie brightest stars in the social skies 
of Colonial Virginia. All desirable traits seemed to lom- 
bine in him : personal beauty, elegant manners, literary 
culture and the greatest gayety of disposition. Never 




COLONEL WILLIAM EVELYN BYRD OF WESTOVER. 

FROM A PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 



Westover 41 

^vas there a livelier comi^anion, and his wit and humor 
■.seemed to flow in an unfailing stream. It is a sj)ecies 
•of jovial grand seigneur and easy master of all the graces 
we see in the person of this author-planter on the banks 
•of James River." 

Of the Westover MSS. described in our 
'' Brandon " paper, the same writer says : 

" We may fancy the worthy planter in ruffles and pow- 
•der, leaning back in his arm-chair at Westover, and dictat- 
ing, with a smile on his lii)s, the gay ])ages to his secretary. 
The smile may be seen to-day on the face of his portrait : 
a face of remarkable personal beauty, framed in the 
•curls of a flowing peruke of the time of Queen Anne. . . 

"His ])ath through life was a i)ath of roses. He had 
wealth, culture, the best i^rivate library in America, social 
consideration, and hosts of friends, and when he went 
to sleep under his monument in the garden at Westover, 
he left behind him not only the rei)utation of a good 
-citizen, but that of the great Virginia wit and author of 
the century." 

The testimony of the moninnent is prohx 
and exhaustive, forestahintr, one might suppose, 
the necessity of any other post-mortem me- 
morial. 

" Here lieth the honorable William Byrd, Esq. Being 
born to one of the amplest fortunes in this country, he 
was sent early to England for his education, where, under 
the care of Sir Robert Southwell, and ever favored with his 



42 Some Colonial Homesteads 

particular instructions, he made a happy proficiency in 
polite and various learning. By the means of the same 
noble friend, he was introduced to the acquaintance of 
many of the first persons of that age for knowledge, wit, 
virtue, birth, or high station, and particularly contracted a 
most intimate and bosom friendship with the learned and 
illustrious Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery. He was called 
to the bar in the Middle Temple : studied for some time 
in the Low Countries ; visited the Court of France, and 
was chosen Fellow of the Royal Society. Thus emi- 
nently fitted for the service and ornament of his country, 
he was made receiver-general of his majesty's revenues 
here ; was thrice appointed public agent to the court 
and ministry of England ; and being thirty-seven years 
a member, at last became president of the council of 
this colony. To all this were added a great elegance of 
taste and life, the well-bred gentleman and polite com- 
panion, the splendid economist, and prudent father of a 
family ; withal, the constant enemy of all exorbitant 
power, and hearty friend to the liberties of his country. 
Nat. Mar. 28, 1674. Mort. Aug. 26, 1744. An aetat. 70.'* 

A cataloi^ue of his books is in the Franklin 
Library, Philadelphia. 

He also advertised in The Jlroinia Gazette 
of April 1737, 



c'^ 



" that on the North Side of James River, near the upper- 
most Landing and a little below the Falls, is lately laid 
off by ^lajor Mayo, a town called Richmond, with 
Streets sixty feet wide, in a Pleasant and Healthy Situa- 



Westover 43 

tion and well supplied with Springs of Good Water. 
It lieth near the Public Warehouse at Shoccoe's," etc. 

In his journal of 1733, he says : 

" We laid the Foundation of Two large Cities, one at 
Shoccoe's to be called Richmond, and the Other at the 
Point of Appomattox, to be called Petersburg." 

Truly the good this man did was not '' in- 
terred with his bones." 

And yet — and yet — ! 

The portrait of his daughter, known in family 
tradition as '' The Fair Evelyn " (pronounced as 
if spelt " ^^velyn "), hangs next to that of her 
superb parent. The painter represents Evelyn 
Byrd as a beautiful young woman, with ex- 
quisite complexion and hands, the latter busied 
in binding wild flowers about a shepherdess-hat. 
The fashion of her satin gown is simple, and 
becoming to a slender figure ; a rose is set 
among the dark curls on the left temple ; a 
scarlet bird is perched in the shrubbery at her 
right. The features are regular ; the forehead 
broad, the hair arching prettily above it ; the 
nose is straight ; the lips are rosy, ripe, and 
lightly closed. The round of cheek and chin is 
exquisite. The great brown eyes are sweet 



44 Some Colonial Homesteads 

-and serious. It is a lovely face — gentle, amia- 
ble and winning-, but not strong — except in 
■capacity for suftering. 

Her father took his children abroad to be 
educated, accompanying them on the voyage 
and paying them several visits during their 
pupilage. In due time, Evelyn was presented 
at Court. One of the Brandon relics is the 
fan used by her on that momentous occasion. 
The sticks are of carved ivory, creamy with 
age. On kid, once white, now yellow, is 
painted a pastoral scene — shepherdess and 
swain, pet spaniel, white sheep, green bank, 
and nodding cowslips under a rose-pink sky. 
They delighted in these violent contrasts with 
the gilded artificiality of court-life in Queen 
Anne's day. We hold the fragile to\- with 
reverent fingers ; can almost discern faint, 
lingering thrills along the delicately wrought 
ivor\' of the joyous tumult of pulses beating 
high with love and ambition. 

One of the many traditions that lead the 
imagination on easily to the reconstruction of 
the romantic biography of William the Great 
of Westover, is that, when he presented his 
wife, Lucy Parke, at the court of his Han- 
overian Majestv Georo-e I., her charms so far 




" THE FAIR EVELYN." 

FROM A PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 



VVestover 47 

melted the Dutch phlegm of the monarch that 
he asked the proud husband if " there were 
many other as beautiful lu'j'ds in the forests of 
America ? " 

Another version of the anecdote [)uts the 
speech into the mouth of Cleoroe II., and 
makes the occasion that of the b^iir l^veUn's 
presentation. All family annalists agree in say- 
ing that the daughter's London sojourn in the 
year starred by her appearance at Court, was 
also made memorable b)' her meeting with 
Charles Mordaunt, the grandsc^i of Lord 
Peterborough. The )'oung man fell in love 
with her, and was loved in return as absolutely 
and passionately as if the fan-pastoral w^ere a 
sketch from nature, and the pair Chloe and 
Strephon. 

Lord Peterborough, the grandfather, was a 
shining figure in the diplomatic, military, and 
social world of his da\', which was a IcMig one. 
He outlived his son and was succeeded In his 
title and estates by his grandson in 1735. 
Those of William Evelyn Ryrd's biographers 
who have discredited the love story on the 
ground of the disparity of age between the 
friend of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay, and 
the lovely American debutante, have been led 



48 Some Colonial Homesteads 

into the doubt by overlooking the genealogical 
facts I have given. 

The hapless pair might have known better 
if lovers ever know anvthino^ better, than to fob 
low blindly whither love leads. \Miatever the 
cynical Earl of Peterborough thought of the 
pretty entanglement, the potentate of \\^est- 
over had reasons weight)', if not man\', for 
taking part In the drama. The Peterboroughs 
were leading Roman Catholics. The '' jovial 
grand seigneur and easy master of all the 
graces " was the stanchest of Protestant Church- 
men. The polished courtier, smiling at us 
from the drawing-room wall of Brandon wore 
quite another aspect when he enacted Cymbe- 
line to the plighted twain, and, 

" Like the tyrannous breathing of the North, 
Shook all their buds from blowing." 

The Fair Evelyn was brought back to West- 
over, with her secret buried so deep In her 
heart that it ate it out. Ennui may have had 
something to do with the low, nervous state 
into which she fell. Unconsciously, she may 
have pined for London gayetles in the un- 
eventful routine of colonial plantation-life. 
The story asserts that the brown, deep eyes 



Westover 49 

grew wistful with thoughts of the lover they 
were never more to see ; her soul sick unto 
death with longing to be with him. 

'' Refusing all offers from other gentlemen, 
she died of a broken heart," is the simple 
record. 

We learn, furthermore, that the author- 
planter bore himself remorselessly while the 
cruel decline went on. If he did not — to 
quote again from the play that must be among 
his catalogued books — bid her, 

" Languish 
A drop of blood a day, and, being aged, 
Die of this folly," . . . 

he stuck fast by his purpose not to let her 
wed the Popish nobleman. He gave no other 
reason for his tyranny than this to the public, 
whatever his daughter and the young peer who, 
some say, followed her to America, may have 
known of other and yet weightier objections 
to the alliance. There are rumors that can 
neither be verified, nor denied, at this distance 
from the tragedy in real life, of early feuds 
between the Mordaunts and the haughty 
First Gentleman of Virorinia, whose stout ad- 
herence to principle or prejudice cost his 
favorite child her life. 



50 Some Colonial Homesteads 

In this connection occurs another family 
anecdote. It was the habit of the Berkeley 
Harrisons and the Westover Byrds often to 
take tea together in the summer weather in a 
oTove on the dividiuL^-line of the two planta- 
tions. Butlers and footmen carried table 
equipage and provisions to the trysting-place, 
set them in order, and waited on the party. 
One afternoon, some weeks before Evelyn's 
death, as she and her dearest friend and con- 
tidante, sweet Anne Harrison, the wife of the 
then owner oi Berkele\", were slowly climb- 
ing the slight ascent to the rendezvous, the 
girl promised to meet her companion some- 
times on the way, when she had passed out of 
others' sight. Accordingly on a certain lovely 
evening in the next spring, as Mrs. Harrison 
walked loneh" and sadK' dov/n the hill, she saw 
her lost friend, dressed in white and dazzling 
in ethereal loveliness, standing beside her 
own tombstone. She fluttered forward a few 
steps, kissed lier hand to the beholder, smiling 
joyously and tenderh*, and vanished. 

The inscription on this same tombstone is 
assuredly not the composition of the author 
of the Westover MSS. I give it, I'crbatini ct 
literati )fi, ct pujictiiatiiu : 



Westovcr 



51 



" Here, in the slee}) of l?ea(-e, 
Rei)oses the Body : 
of Mrs. Evelyn Uyrd : 
Daughter, 
of the Honorable l>yrd, Kaq: 
The various & excellent 
Endowments 
of Nature : Improved and 

perfected, 

By an accomplished luluca- 

tion : 

Formed her, 

For the Happyness of her 

Friends 

For an ornament of her 

Country. 

Alas, Reader ! 

We can detain nothing 

however Valued 

From unrelenting Death : 

Beauty, Fortune or exalted 

Honour. 

See here a Proof. 

And be reminded by this 

awful Tomb : 

That every worldly C'omfort 

fleets away : 

Excepting only what arises, 

From imitating the Virtues 

of our Friends ; 

And the contem])lation of 

their Hai)])yness. 

To which 

God was pleased to call this 

Lady 
On the 13th Day of Novem- 
ber 1737— 
In the 29th Year of Her 
Age." 




COLONEL BYRD'S TOMB IN THE GARDEN AT 
WESTOVER. 



52 



Some Colonial Homesteads 



On the right of Evelyn Byrd's tomb is one 
of like size and shape which guards the remains 
of her orrandmother. An oddlv arrano^ed in- 
scription, running sometimes quite around the 
tlat top, sometimes across it. records that she 
was ''Mary Byrd, Late Wife of William 
Byrd, Esq!' (They never left the '* Esq." off, 
however cramped for room.) ""Daughter of 
Mareham Horsemander, Esq., zcko dyed the 
gth Day of November i6gg In the j.jth Year of 
her Ai^eT 

Her husband lies beside her, a Latin epitaph 
registering the provincial offices held from the 
Crown, and his demise — *' 4th Die Deeembris 
1104 post quam z'ieisset ^2 Annosr 

His more distinguished son was buried under 
the more ambitious monument in the middle 
of the garden. 

The Westover Church was removed from 
the bur\-ing-ground to a portion of the estate 
called Evelynton, about two miles away as the 
crow dies. There is an ugly stor}- of an in- 
cumbent. Rev. John Dunbar, who married a 
daughter of the third Col. Byrd. He " openly 
renounced the ministry, and with it the Chris- 
tian faith, and became a notorious gambler." 
On the occasion of some misunderstanding^ be- 



Westover 53 

tween Benjamin Harrison of Brandon and Ben- 
jamin Harrison of Berkeley, the whilome rector 
offered to bear a challenge from the latter, 
and himself foug-ht a duel resulting- from a 
race-course quarrel, in sight of Old Westover 
Church where he had formerly officiated. 

The third and last Col. William Byrd was 
born in 1728, succeeded to title and estate at 
his father s death in i 744, and served as Colonel 
in the French and Indian War. On August 
3, 1758, the Virginia troops at Fort Cumber- 
land were two thousand in number, under the 
command of Col. Georo-e W^ashinoton and Col. 

<Z> O 

William Byrd of Westover, and the regiment 
of Col. Byrd was 859 strong. 

His first wife was Flizabeth Hill Carter, of 
whom we shall hear more in the paper on Shir- 
ley. His second was Miss Mary Willing, of 
Philadelphia, who bore him eight children. 
Three of them married into the Harrison 
family ; one married a Page of Pagebrook ; 
one a Nelson ; a sixth a Meade, — all noted 
Virginia names. 

William the Third of Westover, Virginia, 
Esq., '' involved himself in debt while under 
age and abroad. He kept company with the 
nobility and gamed." 



54 Some Colonial Homesteads 

He laments In his will that " the estate is 
still greatly encumbered with debts which em- 
bitter every moment of my life." But several 
incidents that have come down to us give us 
pleasing views of his character. One is his 
bravery in rescuing his wife's brothers from 
the third-story chamber during a fire that par- 
tially destroyeci Westover in 1 749. No one 
else dared rush up the blazing staircase. Had 
the young men perished then and there, the 
daily embitterment of debt would have been 
removed, their sister being their next of kin. 

Another anecdote describes Colonel Byrd's 
habit of taklno^ a walk in the Westover 
grounds every evening " about dark," without 
his hat. " Whatever company might be in 
the house did not prevent his doing so. His 
family knew this to be the time he passed in 
devotion." 

He died in January, 1777. His wife's grief 
was excessive. She obstinately refused to 
have him buried for several days, finally yield- 
ing to the necessity at the persuasion of her 
neighbor, Colonel Harrison of Berkeley. She 
was a woman of remarkable ability, highly 
cultivated mind, and excellent business talents. 
Benjamin Franklin was her god-father and 



Westover 55 

friend. She sold her husband's Hbrary and 
silver to assist in the payment of his debts, and 
was her own plantation manager. 

When Benedict Arnold landed at Westover, 
he is said to have made her a prisoner in an 
upper chamber ; grazed his horses in her har- 
vest-fields and shot her cattle. He ravaged 
the place twice, Lord Cornwallis once. Never- 
theless, suspicions of her loyalty were so 
strone that she was twice summoned to Rich- 
mond to be tried as a Tory. 

Arthur Lee writes in i 780, that Arnold car- 
ried on a regular correspondence with Mrs. 
Byrd, until one of his vessels happening to run 
ao^round, her treason was discovered. 

" I have reason," he adds, " to think she will 
not be tried at all, means having been taken 
to keep the witnesses out of the way." 

She died in 18 14, and Westover was sold, 
passing through many hands in the next half- 
century, remaining longest in the Selden fam- 
ily, who occupied it for thirty years. During 
the Civil War it suffered severely in common 
with most James River plantations. General 
Pope and other Federal officers used it in turn 
as headquarters and as a store-house for the 
Commissary department. At the conclusion 



56 Some Colonial Homesteads 

of the war it was bought by Major A. H. 
Drewry, the hero of Drewry's Bhiff. He mar- 
ried Miss Harrison, a member of a collateral 
branch of the ancient race. There is genuine 
satisfaction in knowing that it is again "back 
in the family." The ^Nlajor, an able financier 
and intelligent ao-riculturist, has restored man- 
sion and farming-lands to a condition so nearly 
approximating that of the "genial seigneur's" 
times as to deserve the gratitude of all who 
survey the noble building and smiling acres. 

Leaving the burying-ground at our back, 
we pass by cottage "quarters " and the exten- 
sive stables, where the score of mules are a 
marvel in themselves for size, strength and 
comeliness, through the west gate, erected by 
the Colonel Byrd, into a broad sweep of clean 
oravel curvino; up to the house. The lawn is 
incomparable for beauty among the river 
homesteads, rolling gently down to the wall 
rebuilt by Major Drewry on the foundation 
of Colonel Byrd's. which was demolished to 
furnish material for Federal barrack-chimneys. 
The sward is smooth and luxuriant, dotted 
with grand trees, standing singly and in 
clumps. The tulip-poplar on the left of the 
front-door is a monarch, carrvino- his crown 



Westover 57 

aloft with the pride of a histy octogenarian 
who has outhved his generation. 

The view from the squared stone steps, 
stained with time, was especially beautiful one 
showery day in April, when up-river floods had 
dyed the waters a dull-red. The warm color 
deluded the eye with the effect of a sunset re- 
flection that seemed to light up the rain-swept 
lawn and the gray boundary-lines blurred by 
mists. And all the while, the birds were sine- 
ing ! Red-winged blackbirds, wrens, cat-birds, 
mocking-birds, robins, American sparrows, 
red-birds, — these last dropping like sudden 
flame from the wet trees, — thrushes, — every 
little throat and heart swelling with the gospel, 
'' Behind the clouds is the sun still shining!" 

Truly, bright days have come to Westover. 
Every arable foot of the large estate is under 
cultivation, and a marsh of 300 acres over 
which duck-hunters and fishermen used to sail, 
has been reclaimed by steam-dredge and 
pump. 

A great hall cuts the house in two ; the 
twisted balustrades of the stairs at the back 
are of solid mahogany ; all the lofty rooms are 
wainscoted up to the ceiling. Over the draw- 
ing-room mantel Colonel Byrd had a mirror 



5^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

built into the wall, and framed in white Italian 
marble wrought into grapes, leaves, and ten- 
drils. The cost was live hundred pounds. 
The troops in occupation during the war 
shivered the mirror and beat the sides of the 
frame to pieces, leaving the plainer setting at 
bottom and top comparatively unharmed. 

Through the open back-door (which is the 
carriage-front) is visible a curious iron gate, 
surmounted by the monogram, *' W. E. B." 
The soldiers levelled it also, with the two leaden 
eagles perched on stone globes, "with a rak- 
ish, (/i'^uoiY air positively disgraceful at their 
age ! " declares the sweet-faced, sunny-hearted 
mistress of the home. The visitors dislodged 
the stone balls and pineapples that alternate 
upon the posts of the fence dividing the yard 
from the level richness of the fields. Major 
Drewry sought and gathered up each fragment 
and restored all to their original places, ex- 
pending at least $20,000 in the work of rep- 
aration of buildings and enclosures. 

The left corridor and wing pulled down by 
the soldiers, have not been rebuilt. A tool- 
house stands above a dry well once covered by 
this wing. The cemented sides slope inward 
toward the bottom. At a depth of hfteen feet 



Westover 



59 



are two lateral chambers eioht feet square. The 
walls are of smooth cement, the floors paved 
with brick. In one of these formerly stood a 




A CURIOUS IRON GATE." 



round stone table with a central shaft and 
spreadinor feet. Ag-ain, tradition comes to our 



6o Some Colonial Homesteads 

aid with tales of a hiding-place from the In- 
dians, connected with a subterranean passage, 
long ago closed, that led to the river. Lean- 
ing over the mouth of the shaft, while two 
gallant young men descended a ladder with 
lamps which revealed the arched entrances of 
the mysterious recesses, we three practical 
women scouted Major Drewry's suggestions of 
meat and wine cellars, and when we had drawn 
from him the account of a tunnel, the mouth of 
which was unearthed b)' his laborers but a few 
weeks before, we remained In possession of the 
field. Nothing was clearer to our apprehen- 
sion than that this tunnel — opening upon the 
river — five feet In height and as many wide, 
and paved with flagstones, formerly connected 
directly with our vaults, and was constructed 
In the near memory of the Indian Massacre of 
1622, when In the list of the "killed" we read 
" . // JJ\'sfo:'cr about a luilc from Berkeley Hiiii- 
drcd, 33'' Had not Cooper described in his 
]]\'pt-of-]]^isJi-to}i-]]lsJi, just such a well, in 
which a whole colony took refuge while the 
blockhouse was burned over their heads ? 

Berkeley, the " Berkeley Hundred " of the 
chronicle. Is still In excellent preservation, the 
English brick of which It was built promising to 



Westover 



6i 



last two centuries longer. The owner of the 
plantation at the date of the Massacre was Mr. 
George Thorpe, one of the principal men of 
the colony who had befriended Opechanca- 
nough — the uncle of Pocahontas — in every 
possible manner, and treated all the Indians 




BERKELEY. 



with marked kindness. " He had been warned 
of his danger by a servant, but, making no 
effort to escape, fell a victim to his misplaced 
confidence." 



02 



Some Colonial Homesteads 



The place passed out of the Harrison fam- 
ily, a quarter-century ago, after eight genera- 
tions of the name and blood had owned it and 
lived there. Gen. W. H. Harrison was born at 
Berkeley, and came to \'irginia, after his elec- 
tion to the Presidency, expressly to write his 
inauoTiral " in his mother's room." 




Ill 



SHIRLEY 



THE old homesteads of James River are 
linked together by ties of consanguinity 
and affection, interesting and sometimes amus- 
ing to the outside spectator, yet exceedingly 
pretty in the natural acceptation of relation- 
ships on the part of those involved in them. 

The ramifications of blood and family con- 
nections exist elsewhere of course, but it is 
seldom that a locality — such as a village or 
township — in Northern and Western States, is 
settled entirely by cousins from generation to 
generation. Still rarer is the custom of re- 
cognizing the kinship to the fifth and sixth 
remove, which makes the Old \'irginia neigh- 
borhood a standing illustration of the text — 
"He hath made of one blood all nations " 
(read " conditions" ) " of men." 

63 



64 Some Colonial Homesteads 

The utterance of the names of a generation 
is Hke the whispering together of many branches 
of a genealogical tree. Nelson Page and Page 
Nelson ; Carter Page and Page Carter ; Mann 
Page: William Byrd Page: Carter Harrison 
and Harrison Carter: Shirley Harrison: Byrd 
Harrison: Shirley Carter: Carter Berkeley: 
Carter Braxton — and a hundred other inter- 
changes and imions of surnames and baptismal 
pra^nomens tell the tale of intermarriage, and of 
affection for the line *' in linked a/J^cIIiifiou 
long drawn out. ' One versed in State history, 
on hearing one of these compounded titles, 
can arrive, forthwith, at a fair apprehension of 
who were the owner's forbears, and in what 
county he was born. 

Hill Carter of Shirley, than whom no \'ir- 
ginia planter of this century was better and 
more favorably known, thus proclaimed his 
lineage and birthplace witli unmistakable 
distinctness. 

In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale. Governor of the 
Colony of \'irginia and chietiy renowned for 
the part he took in forwarding the marriage of 
Rolfe and Pocahontas, laid out and g-ave title 
to the plantation of \\\ st Shirley, named, it is 
said, in honor of Sir Thomas Shirlev. of Whis- 



Shirley 65 

ton, luiL^kiiul. h is set down in the history 
o\ the hulian Mvissacro oi 1022 as cmio of the 
'* tivo ov six woll-tcM-titiod phicos " into which the 
survixors oathered tor detence, leaving- homes, 
cattle, and furniture to destruction. There is 
no record of " kiUed " at this place. 

The estate conies intc^ historical [M'oniinence 
as the seat o\ the Honorable — sometimes 
called *' Sir " — l^dward 1 1 ill. " a member oi His 
Majest\'s Council in X'irginia, Colonel and 
Connuander-in-Chief oi the Counties ot Charles 
Cit\- and Surr\-, judi^e of his Majesty's Hii^h 
Cotu't of Admiralty, and Treasurer oi YW- 
o-hiia." He was Speaker of the AssembK" of 
Biiro-esses conxene*.! in XoNcmber, 1054, at 
which time " William Hatcher, beino- con\icted 
of havino- stig-matized Colonel l^dward Hill, 
Speaker of the House, as an atheist and blas- 
phemer, was compelled to make acknowledg- 
ment of his offense upon his knees before 
Colonel Hill and the Assembly." 

The scene in the Assembly-Room when the 
sentence was carried hito execution was, says 
tradition, exceedingly impressive. The stifled 
choler and sullen submission of the offender ; 
the dignity maintained b\- the most Christian 
Speaker, whose innocence of the "stigma- 



66 



Some Colonial Homesteads 



tizino-" chai'L^cs was tlius publicly disproved; 
the awed solemnity of the honorable Burgesses 
in Council assembled — were a sight to make 
the Albany of two hundred years later stare in 
dumb amaze, and the Houses of Congress as- 
sembled at Washington shake with " inextin- 
guishable laughter." 

In 1098-99, the name of 
Robert Carter is given as 
Speaker of the House and 
_ Treasurer of \irginia. His 

W' # ^''l ^ hither, John Carter, emi- 
JF / xl T. oTated from England in 
1040 and settled, hrst in 
upper Xorfolk. now Xanse- 
mond Count)-, afterward in 
Lancaster. We hear of him 
in 1058 as chairman of a committee in the 
House of Burgesses that drew up a declaration 
of popular sovereignty. At the next session. 
Col. Edward Hill was elected Speaker. *' Col. 
Moore Fauntleroy, of Rappahannock County. 
not being present at the election, moved against 
him as if clandestinely elected, and taxed the 
House with unwarrantable proceedings therein. 
He was suspended until next day, when, ac- 
knowleciging his error, he was readmitted." 




CARTER COAT-QF-ARMS. 




KING CARTER 



Shirley 69 

In the Hst of members of this Assembly, we 
note "Colonel John Carter," also "Mr. War- 
ham Horsemander," the father of the first 
Colonel Byrd's wife. It is probable that an 
intimacy between the two leading- spirits, Car- 
ter and Hill, had already begun which extended 
to their families. 

Robert Carter became one of the largest 
landholders in Virginia, holding so much real 
estate in Lancaster County and elsewhere as 
to be popular!)' known as " King Carter." He 
held semi-regal sway at his homestead, Coroto- 
man, on the Rappahannock, built a church, 
which is still standing, and brought up to 
man's and woman's estate one dozen children 
to keep alive his name in his native state. 
His tomb, sadly mutilated by the relic-fiend, is 
at Corotoman. 

His son, John, married Col. Edward Hill's 
daughter, Elizabeth, and became, by virtue of 
her succession to her father's estate, master of 
Shirley. 

Benjamin Harrison, of Berkeley, married 
one of King Carter's daughters. Mr. Har- 
rison and two of his daughters were killed by a 
flash of lightning at F3erkeley some years later. 
Another daughter married Mann Page of Tim- 



70 Some Colonial Homesteads 

berneck. Without following;- farther bough and 
twio- of the genealooical tree aforesaid, enough 
has been told to account for the plentiful har- 
vest of Carters in Eastern and Central \'irginia. 
Annie Carter Lee, wife of " Light Horse 
Harrv" Lee, and mother of Robert E. Lee» 
was a descendant of King Carter, and was 
born at Shirley. 

The shores of the watery highway from 
Norfolk to Richmond are strikingh" beautiful, 
especially in autumn and early spring. At the 
latter season, the winter wheat in rich luxuri- 
ance rolls back to the hills outlying the low- 
lands ; orchards are in full bloom ; snowy dog- 
wood and rosy red-bud and the lovely fringe- 
tree, seldom seen except in A'irginia, alternate 
with the pale-green of birch and willow. Wide 
spaces of the steeper banks are whitened by 
wild lilies and reddened by columbine. Every 
bend of the stream is historic. Bermuda Hun- 
dred, City Point, Turkey Island, Malvern Hills, 
Powhatan, — one of the royal residences of the 
stout-hearted Lidian king, — a fascinating- 
melange of legendary lore and exciting inci- 
dents of what every patriot prays may stand 
forever on the page of national history at " the 
last war," — keeps sense and thought on the 




JUDITH ARMISTEAD 
(wife of king carter^. 



Shirley 72> 

alert, and reconciles the passenger to the many 
"landings" and slow progress of the steamer 
up the river. The situation of Shirley on a 
bluff affords the eye an extensive sweep of 
land and water in every direction. We can- 
not but commend the judgment of Captain 
John Smith and his contemporaries in select- 
ing this as one of the first forts built by the 
Virginia colonists. As we have seen, it was 
one of the strongest. 

The present manor-house was erected in the 
17th century — it is said about 1650. It is 
more compact in structure than Upper and 
Lower Brandon, Westover, and Berkeley. 
The corridor extensions and flanking wings of 
the first three seem to have met with no favor 
in the eyes of builder and owner. In form 
and proportions the mansion reminds us rather 
of a French chateau than of an English 
country-seat such as was the model of most 
colonial proprietors. It suffered less from the 
civil war than the others, and has been kept in 
perfect order, such restorations as were needful 
being made in keeping with the original design. 

The pillared porch of the water front looks 
out upon an elbow of the river. The lawn is 
enclosed by a superb box-tree hedge ; trees of 



74 Some Colonial Homesteads 

flowerinor box attract the earliest bees of the 
season by the sweet pungency of their odor ; 
the garden squares, laid out and stocked in the 
dear old English style, are edged with the 




SHIRLEY. 



same evergreen. An ivied tree here, a wide- 
branching poplar there, and, nearer the water, 
a clump of forest oaks, allow very unsatisfac- 
tory glimpses of the grand old homestead 
from steamboats and other river craft. 



Shirley 75 

The death of the late master of Shirley, Mr. 
Robert Randolph Carter, which occurred in 
the spring of 1888, cast a gloom over the en- 
tire neighborhood. He was a Virginia gentle- 
man of the noblest stamp, one whose loss is 
irreparable, not only to his family, but to com- 
munity and State. We see the traces of his 
wise administration everywhere in the magnifi- 
cent plantation — in wheat-fields hundreds of 
acres in extent ; luxuriant corn-lands ; well- 
kept stock and commodious cottage " quarters," 
to each of which belongs a garden of fair ex- 
tent, neatly tilled. 

The central hall and the staircase are re- 
markably fine. Hatchments of great age are 
set over two doors. The drawino-room of 
noble proportions is wainscoted and elegantly 
furnished. In this, as in the hall and dining- 
room, are the likenesses of numerous Hills 
and Carters. A full-length, life-size picture of 
Washington by Peale, hangs in the dining- 
parlor which adjoins the drawing-room. One 
of the portraits in the latter apartment is of a 
beautiful Welsh heiress, Miss Williams, who 
married Colonel (or Sir) Edward Hill and 
came with him to America. The portrait of 
John Carter, the lucky winner of Miss Hill's 



76 Some Colonial Homesteads 

heart and hand, is a three-quarter-length like- 
ness of a gallant gentleman in flowing peruke 
and lace cravat. His velvet coat is trimmed 
with silver lace and buttons ; puffed cambric 
imdersleeves enhance the slim elegance of his 
hands. Beautiful hands were hereditary with 
the race if limners told the truth. 

His daughter Elizabeth, has the same, and 
is apparently aware of the fact. Her eyes are 
almond-shaped, Hke her father's ; her face is 
plump and complacent, with more than a dis- 
position to a double-chin. A coquettish hat is 
tied lightly on the crown of the round dark 
head ; her pale-blue gown is emphatically 
decollete ; her elbow-sleeves are edged with 
priceless lace. She bears a strong resemblance 
to her squire brother, Charles Carter, who 
hangs near by. He was an exemplary citizen 
and earnest Churchman. His name is among 
those of the lay delegates to the Episcopal 
Convention held in Richmond in i 793. 

Had Elizabeth Hill Carter been a dairymaid 
we would call her buxom, and the set agree- 
ableness of her smile a smirk. She married 
at seventeen the third Colonel Byrd of West- 
over, and bore him five children. The young 
parents did not live happily together, we are 



Shirley -]-] 

told. Both were the spoiled children of f(jr- 
tune, and pulled in so many different ways 
that their misunderstandings were neighbor- 
hood gossip. It was surmised that it was 
rather a shock than a woe to Colonel Byrd, 
when, as he sat at the whist-table in a friend's 
house, a messenger rode over in hot haste 
from Westover to tell him that Mrs. Byrd had 
pulled a wardrobe over on herself and been 
instantly killed. It may hav(; been the infalli- 
ble instinct of good blood and breeding that 
made him rise from the table and bow apolo- 
getically to his partner with a courteous regret 
that the game could not go on. This partner, 
gossip hints furthermore, was the pretty 
*' Molly Willing," whom he afterward married. 

Mrs. Byrd's accidental death occurred eleven 
years after her marriage, when she was but 
twenty-eight. 1 he date was 1 760. The 
chronicle adds dryly : " There is no record 
preserved of his second marriage. It is sup- 
posed to have been in 1760." To round off 
the gossipy tale, the story has come down of 
the nickname "Willing Molly" applied to the 
fair Philadelphian who won the "catch " of the 
county from Virginia belles. 

Without casting discredit upon local and 



7^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

» 

traditional authorities, oral and documentary, 
we may surely reserve to ourselves the right, 
in view of what we have learned elsewhere of 
Mrs. Byrd's character as a woman, wife, and 
mother, of hinting at a possible cause for the 
tale and nickname. The Byrds were princes 
In their own right even as late as i 760, and the 
beautiful visitor to the hospitable neighborhood 
may have shared the fate of other poachers. 

She loved her lord passionately, faithfully, 
and always, we learn In the history of West- 
over. She made him happier, and adminis- 
tered the affairs of the realm far more judi- 
ciously than his first wife ever could, had her 
desire been never so good. 

But did this happy husband and pious gen- 
tleman ever bethink himself in the devotional 
promenade under his ancestral trees " about 
dark," mentioned In our Westover paper, of the 
child he had first wedded, and orlve a siQ-h at 
her untimely and tragic death ? He may have 
been sorely tried by her caprices and flurries, 
but we are heartily sorry for her when we learn 
that she grieved bitterly for the little boys 
whom their father Insisted upon sending to 
England to be educated, as was the custom of 
the Byrds and that she never saw them again. 



Shirley 79 

In a curious and now rare book entitled, 
Travels in North America in i 780-1 781 and 
1782. by the Marquis de Chastelleiix, we have 
a glimpse of one of these motherless boys. 
The noble tourist passed several days at West- 
over and is enthusiastic in his praise of poor 
Betty's successor : 

" She is about two-and-forty, with an agree- 
able countenance and great sense," — is a 
sentence that, against our will, provokes com- 
parison with the spoiled, passionate child. 

" Betty " left four children ; the second Mrs. 
Byrd had eight. The Frenchman lauds her 
excellent manaofement of the encumbered 
estate, and sympathizes in her various misfor- 
tunes. 

" Three times have the English landed at 
Westover under Arnold and Cornwallis, and, 
'though these visits cost her dear, her husband's 
former attachment to England, where his eldest 
son is now serving in the army, her relationship 
with Arnold, whose cousin-german she is, and 
perhaps, too, the jealousy of her neighbors, 
have given birth to suspicions that war alone 
was not the object which induced the English 
always to make their descents at her habita- 
tion. She has been accused even of conniv- 



8o Some Colonial Homesteads 

ance with them, and the government have 
once set their seal upon her papers, but she 
has braved the tempest and defended herself 
with tirmness." 

We confess, — acrain and reluctantlv — for our 
hearts cline irrationallv to the nauo^htv pickle 
whom the paragon displaced in her husband's, 
and probably in her children's, hearts — that 
Betty would never have steered a laden barque 
thus safelv throuo^h seas that wrecked manv a 
fair American fortune. It was well for all 
whose fates were linked with hers that the 
stormy chapter was short and the end abrupt. 

In addition to disagreement with husband 
and separation from children, she had, as we 
are informed upon the authority of family 
MSS., the trial of a severely captious mother- 
in-law. The stepmother who pitied the fair 
Evelyn, dying slowly of a broken heart, ruled 
her son's girl-wife sharply. There is extant a 
letter in which she complains of " Betty's " 
frivolous taste and extravagance, and that the 
silly creature would think herself ruined for 
time and eternity " if she could not have two 
new lutestring gowns every year." It is a 
matter of traditional report that the mother- 
in-law hid some of Betty's belongings, or 




ELIZABETH HILL CARTER v""BETTY".X 



Shirley ^3 

something the wilful wife longed to possess, 
on the top of the tall wardrobe. Others say 
she suspected the existence of letters that 
would justify her jealous misgivings as to her 
lord's fidelity, and was looking for them when 
the big press careened and crushed her. 

The wraith of the apple-cheeked, careless- 
eyed girl, whose fixed smile grows tiresome as 
we gaze, may not walk at Shirley, as Evelyn 
Byrd is said to glide along halls and staircases 
at Westover, but we remember her and her 
fate more vividly than any other face and his- 
tory committed to sight and memory at the 
ancient manor-house. 




IV 

• THE MARSHALL HOUSE 

THE house built by John Marshall — United 
States Envoy to France 1797-98 ; Mem- 
ber of Congress from Virginia 1 799-1800; 
Secretary of State, 1 800-1 801, and Chief-Jus- 
tice of the U. S. Supreme Court 1801-35, — 
and in which he resided until his death, except 
when the duties of his office called him to 
Washinorton, is still standino- in Richmond, 
Virginia, on the corner of Marshall and Ninth 
Streets. The ownership has remained in the 
family for almost a century, although the 
dwelling has had other tenants, among them 
the late Henry A. \\'ise. 

The whole block was covered by a famous 
fruit and vegetable garden when the house 
was erected. The exterior has never been re- 
modelled, and there have been few chanofes 

8 + 



The Marshall House 



85 



within. By an odd, and what seems to us an 
inexphcable, mischance, the architect, in Judge 
Marshall's prolonged absence, built the whole 
mansion ''hind-side before." A handsome en- 




MARSHALL HOUSE, RICHMOND, VA. 

trance-hall and staircase, the balusters of which 
are of carved cherry, dark with age, are at the 
back, opening toward the garden and domestic 
offices. Directly in front of this is the dining- 
room, looking upon Marshall Street. What 



So Some Colonial Homesteads 

was meant in the plan to be the back-door, in 
the wall opposite the tireplace, gives upon a 
porch on the same thoroughfare. The general 
entrance for visitors is by a smaller door on the 
side street. Turning to the right from this 
through another door which is a modem aftair. 
one hnds himself in what was. at hrst, a second 
hall, lighted by two windows and warmed by 
an open fireplace. This was the family sitting- 
room in olden times, although open on two 
sides to the view of all who might enter by 
front or back door. 

Altogether, the architectural and domestic 
arrangements of the interior are refreshingly 
novel to one used to the jealous privacies 
and labor-saving conveniences of the modem 
home. We reflect at once that ever\- dish of 
the great dinners, which were the salient feat- 
ure of hospitality then, must have been brought 
by hand across the kitchen-yard, up the back 
steps through the misplaced hall, and put upon 
the table which, we are told, was set diagonally 
across the room to accommodate the giiests at 
Judge Marshall's celebrated " lawyers' dinners." 

The Marshall House is now the propert}^ 
of Mr. F. Ci. Rutrin. whose wife is a grand- 
daughter of the Chief-Justice, his only daugh- 



The Marshall House S; 

ler ha\-ing married the late Gen. Jaquelin 
Bunvell Har\-ie. 

Mrs. Ruftin gives a graphic description of 
these feasts, as beheld by her, then a child, 
peeping surreptitiously through the door left 
ajar by the passing servants. The Chief- 
Justice sat at the head of the long board near- 
est the lireplace, his son-in-law, Mr. Har\-ie, 
at the foot. Between theni were never less 
than thirty- members of the Virginia Bar, and 
the sons of such as had grown, or nearly 
grown lads. The damask cloth was covered 
with good things : big barons of beef, joints 
of mutton : poultry- of all kinds ; vegetables, 
pickles, etc., and the second course was as 
profuse. The witty things said, the roars of 
laughter that applauded them, the succession of 
humorous and wise talk, having, for the centre 
of all, the distinguished master of the feast, have 
no written record, but were never forgotten by 
the participants in the mighty banquets. 

Besides his daughter, the Chief- Justice had 
nve sons : Thomas, for whom his father built 
the house opposite his own, which is still 
standing : Jaquelin. the namesake of his Hu- 
guenot ancestor ; John, James, and Edward, 
The last-named died in Washincfton a few 



88 Some Colonial Homesteads 

years ago, at the age of eighty, a clerk in one 
of the government offices. 

fudge Marshall lived so near our day, and 
bore so conspicuous a part in the histor)- of 
a countrv which cherishes his fame, that every 
tolerably well-educated person is familiar with 
his name and public services. 

Old residents of the \'irginian capital like 
to tell stories of the well-beloved eccentric 
who made the modest building on Marshall 
Street historical. The quarter was aristocratic 
then. The stately residences of Amblers, 
W'ickhams, and Leighs claimed and made ex- 
clusiveness. which in her later march Fashion 
laughs to scorn. Nothing could make Judge 
^Marshall fashionable. His disregard of pre- 
vailing stvles. or even neatness in apparel, 
was so well known that these peculiarities 
attracted no attention from his fellow-citi- 
zens. He was a law unto himself in dress 
and habits. His cravat — white by courtesy — 
was twisted into a creased wisp by his nervous 
iineers, and the knot was usuallv imder his 
ear. He wore his coat threadbare without 
having it brushed, his shoes were untied and 
the lacings trailed in the dust, and his hat was 
pushed to the back of his head. 




89 



CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL. 



The Marshall House 91 

In action he was no less independent of 
others' example and criticism. It was the 
custom then, in the easy-going, hospitable 
city, for gentlemen who were heads of fami- 
lies to do their own marketing. The Old 
Market on lower Main Street witnessed many 
friendly meetings each morning of " solid 
men," and echoed to much wise and witty 
talk. Behind each orentleman, stood and 
walked a neo^ro footman, bearinor a h'lQ- basket 
in which the oorning purchases were depos- 
ited and taken home. About the market- 
place also hung men and boys, eager to turn 
an honest shilling by assisting in this burden- 
bearing if need offered. 

Judge Marshall shook hands and chatted 
cheerily with acquaintances, who were all 
friends and admirers, and when his purchases 
were made, shouldered his own basket or, if 
as often happened, he had forgotten to bring 
it, loaded himself up with the provisions as 
best suited his humor. His invariable prac- 
tice was to carry home whatever he bought at 
stall or shop. 

My childish recollection is vivid of a scene 
described in my hearing by a distinguished 
Richmond lawyer, now dead, of a meeting 



92 Some Colonial Homesteads 

with the great jurist on the most public part 
of Main Street one morning in Christmas- 
week. A huore turkey, with the leo^s tied 
together, hung, head downward, from one of 
the Judge's arms, a pair of ducks dangled 
from the other. A brown-paper bundle, rud- 
died by the beefsteak it enveloped, had been 
forced into a coat-tail pocket, and festoons of 
*' chitterlings " — a homely dish of which he 
was as fond as Geortre the Third of boiled 
mutton — overflowed another, and bobbed 
against his lean calves. 

Another story is of a young man who had 
lately removed to Richmond, who accosted a 
rusty stranger standing at the entrance to the 
Markethouse as " old man," and asked if he 
" would not like to make a ninepence by carry- 
ing a turkey home for him ? " The rusty 
stranger took the gobbler without a word, and 
walked behind the young householder to the 
latter's gate. 

"Catch!" said the "fresh" youth, chuck- 
ing ninepence at his hireling. 

The coin was deftly caught, and pocketed, 
and as the old man turned away, a well- 
known citizen, in passing, raised his hat so 
deferentially, that the turkey-buyer was sur- 



The Marshall House 93 

prised into asking-, '' Who is that shabby old 
fellow ? " 

" The Chief-Justice of the United States." 

" Impossible ! " stammered the horrified 
blunderer, — '' Why did he bring my turkey 
home, and — take — my ninepence ? " 

" Probably to teach you a lesson in gooel 
breeding and independence. He will give the 
money away before he gets home. You can't 
get rid of the lesson. And he would carry 
ten turkeys and walk twice as far for the joke 
you have j^iven him." 

We can easily imagine that the incident may 
have been related in the host's raciest style at 
the next lawyers' dinner under which the di- 
agonal table creaked in the, then, modern 
homestead. And we wonder who got the his- 
toric ninepence. It would be a priceless coin, 
were Identification possible. 

To admirers of the statesman-patriot, the 
writer and jurist, a glimpse of the man, as his 
family saw him, when the front and back doors 
of his reversed habitation w^ere closed to the 
world, will be acceptable. 

As at Westover and Shirley, the most inter- 
esting of the procession of visionary shapes 
that glide past the muser in the chambers of 



94 Some Colonial Homesteads 

the weather-beaten and s^rav old house, is a 
woman. 

Mary Willis Ambler was a descendant of 
Edward Jaquelin, an Englishman of French- 
Huguenot extraction, who arrived in America 
in 1697, and settling at Jamestown, became 
eventually the owner of the island plantation. 
His dauo^hter Elizabeth married Richard Am- 
bier, and a grandson, Edward Ambler, espoused 
]\Iary Cary, George Washington's first love. 
Another grandson, Jaquelin Ambler, married 
Rebecca Burwell, of whom Thomas Jefferson 
was, when young, passionately enamoured, and 
Mary Willis was the second daughter of the 
union. It would appear from the account 
given of the circumstances attending her first 
meeting with Mr. (then Captain) John Mar- 
shall, that the talent for supplanting rivals in 
the court of hearts, which brought two em- 
bryo Presidents to grief, was hereditary, and 
most innocently improved by herself. 

The Amblers were living in York in 17S1- 
'82, when a ball was held in the neighborhood, 
to which Captain Marshall, already reputed to 
be a young man of genius and bravery was 
bidden. The fair damsels of the district were 
greatly excited at the prospect of meeting 



The Marshall House 95 

him, and began, forthwith, sportive projects for 
captivating him. 

The graceful pen of Mary Ambler's sister, 
?^Irs. Edward Carrington, narrates what en- 
sued : 

'Tt is remarkable that my sister, then only 
fourteen, and diffident beyond all others, de- 
clared that we were orivinor ourselves useless 
trouble, for that she (for the first time) had 
made up her mind to go to the ball — 'though 
she had never been to dancing-school — and was 
' resolved to set her cap at him and eclipse us 
all.' This, in the end, was singularly verified. 
At the first introduction, he became devoted 
to her. For my part I felt not the slightest 
wish to contest the prize with her. 

'Tn this, as in every other instance, my sis- 
ter's superior discernment and solidity of char- 
acter have been impressed upon me. She at a 
glance discerned his character, and understood 
how to appreciate it, while I, expecting to see 
an Adonis, lost all desire of becoming agree- 
able in his eyes when I beheld his awkward 
figure, unpolished manners and negligent 
dress." 

John Marshall and Mary Willis Ambler 
were married April 3, i yS^, the bride being 



9^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

under seventeen, the groom twenty-eight years 
of age. 

No fairer idyl of wedded bliss was ever 
penned by poet than the every-day story lived 
by this husband and wife for fifty years save 
two. However negligent in attire and un- 
couth in appearance John Marshall might be 
as young man and old ; however stern in de- 
bate and uncompromising in judgment, as a 
public servant, — to the child-wife who, after 
the premature birth of her first infant, never 
had a day of perfect health, he was the ten- 
derest, most chivalric of lovers. As her 
chronic invalidism became more apparent, he 
redoubled his assiduity of attention. There 
are those yet living who recall how, on- each 
recurring 22d of February and 4th of July, the 
Marshall chariot was brouorht around to the 
door in the early morning, and the Judge, 
after lifting the fragile woman into it, would 
step into it himself and accompany her to the 
house of a country friend, there to pass the 
day, her nerves being too weak to endure the 
shock of the cannonading. 

They had been married forty-one years 
when he wrote her the letter of which the fol- 
lowing extract is now published for the first 



The Marshall House 97 

time. He was at that date, February 23, 
1824, on official duty in Washington, and Mrs. 
Marshall was in Richmond. The Chief-Justice 
had had a fall which injured his knee, and had 
kept the news from his wife. Finding from 
her letters that the papers had exaggerated 
the accident, he writes to his " dearest Polly," 
making light of the hurt, and assuring her 
that he will be out in a few days. Then he 
continues : 

" All the ladies of Secretaries have been to see me, 
some more than once, and have brought me more jelly 
than I can eat, and offered me a great many good things. 
1 thank them and stick to my barley broth. 

" Still I have plenty of time on my hands. How do 
you think I beguile it ? I am almost tempted to leave 
you to guess until I write again. . . . 

" You must know I begin with the ball at York and 
with the dinner on the fish at your house the next day. 
I then return to my visit to York ; our splendid assem- 
bly at the Palace in Williamsburg ; my visit to Rich- 
mond, where I acted ' Pa ' for a fortnight ; my return 
to the field and the very welcome reception you gave me 
on my arrival from Dover ; our little tiffs and makings 
up ; my feelings when Major Dick ^ was courting you ; 
my trip to ' The Cottage,' [the Ambler's home in Han- 
over, where the marriage took place] and the thousand 

' Major Richard Anderson, father of Gen. Robert Anderson of 
Fort Sumter renown. 
7 



98 Some Colonial Homesteads 

little incidents deeply affecting in turn — [here the 
paper is torn] coolness which contrib . . . for a 
time to the happiness or misery of my life." 

We turn the yellow, cracked sheet over, to 
read again, with the emotion of one who finds 
hid treasure in an unpromising field, the prose- 
poem of the lover who was almost a septua- 
genarian when he wrote it. The grace, 
tenderness, and playful gallantry of that which 
was meant only for his wife's eyes are inimita- 
ble, and preach a lesson to world-worn, love- 
sated hearts that no commentary can deepen. 

Another hitherto unpublished letter, dated 
March 9, 1825, tells his faithful Polly of Mr. 
Adams's (John Quincy) inauguration. 

" I administered the oath to the President 
in the presence of an Immense concourse of 
people. In my new suit of domestic manufac- 
ture. He, too, was dressed In the same man- 
ner, 'though his cloth was made at a different 
establishment. The cloth Is very fine and 
smooth." 

The day before she died, Mrs. Marshall tied 
about her husband's neck a ribbon to which 
was attached a locket contalnlno^ some of her 
hair. He wore It always afterward by day and 
night, never allowing another hand to touch it. 



The Marshall House loi 

By his directions, it was the last thing taken 
from his body after his death, which took place 
in July, 1835. 

An extract from a paper found folded up 
with his will, a written tribute to his wife, 
solemn, sweet, and infinitely touching, may 
fitly close a romance of real life that tempts 
us to cavil at what sounds like the faint praise 
of the resolutions of the Virginia Bar, offered 
by Benjamin Watkins Leigh, in announcing 
the death of the Chief-Justice. 

Therein are eulogized his " unaffected sim- 
plicity of manner ; the spotless purity of his 
morals ; his social, gentle, cheerful disposition ; 
his habitual self-denial and boundless generos- 
ity." He is declared to have been '' exemplary 
in the relations of son, brother, husband, and 
father." 

" Exemplary " is hardly the adjective we 
would employ after reading what was written 
in his locked study on the first anniversary of 
his " Polly's " departure. 

''December 25, 1832. 

" This day of joy and festivity to the whole 
Christian world is, to my sad heart, the anni- 
versary of the keenest afi^Iction which human- 



I02 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ity can sustain. While all around is gladness, 
my mind dwells on the silent tomb, and cher- 
ishes the remembrance of the beloved object 
it contains. 

"On the 25 th of December, 1831. it was the 
will of Heaven to take to itself the companion 
who had sweetened the choicest part of my 
life, had rendered toil a pleasure, had par- 
taken of all my feelings, and was enthroned in 
the inmost recesses of my heart. Never can 
I cease to feel the loss and deplore it. Grief 
for her is too sacred ever to be profaned on 
this day, which shall be, during my existence, 
devoted to her memory. 

*' I saw her the week she had attained the 
age of fourteen, and was greatly pleased with 
her. Girls then came into company much 
earlier than at present. As my attentions, 
'though without any avowed purpose, nor so 
open or direct as to alarm, soon became evi- 
dent and assiduous, her heart received an 
impression which could never be effaced. 
Having felt no prior attachment, she became, 
at sixteen, a most devoted wife. All my faults, 
and they were too many, could never weaken 
this sentiment. It formed a part of her exist- 
ence. Her judgment was so sound and so 



The Marshall House 



o 



deep that I have often relied upon it in situa- 
tions of some perplexity. I do not recollect 
once to have regretted the adoption of her 
opinion. I have sometimes regretted its 
rejection." 




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V 



CLIVEDEN 



THE New World of the American Colonies 
was as blessed a godsend to the cadets of 
noble English houses two hundred and fifty 
years ago as are Australia, India, and Canada 
to-day. 

Nearly everyone of our " old families" that 
has preserved a genealogical tree, may discern 
the beginning of Its line In a twig that grew 
well toward the terminal tip of the bough. 

Already, careers that led to fortune and 
renown were becomincr scarce in the mother 
country. The rich unclaimed spaciousness of 
the El Dorado across the sea attracted. In 
equal measure, the prudent and the ambitious. 

John Chew, merchant, the younger son of 
a Somersetshire family of the same name, 
sailed from England with Sarah, his wife. In 

104 



Cliveden 



lO: 




CHEW COAT OF ARMS. 



the Seaflower In 1622, and was received with 
open arms by those of his own name and 
blood, who had, a year earlier, settled in 
Virginia. Hogg Island ( now 
" Homewood") a little be- 
low Jamestown, in the 
widening James River, is 
said to have been the place 
of landing. His name oc- 
curs in several grants of land 
by, and memorials addressed to, the parent 
government in 1642-4, and as a member 
of the Honorable House of Burgesses of the 
Colony of Virginia, yearly, from 1623-43, a 
protracted period of service, which is silent 
testimony to personal probity and official 
ability. His term of office embraced the 
latter part of the reign of James I. whose death 
his loving colonists mourned in 1625, and 
almost the whole of that of his unhappy 
successor. 

Strafford and Laud had perished on the 
scaffold, and Charles I. had departed from 
London upon the seven years of conflict and 
captivity that were to end in the shadow of 
Whitehall, January 30, 1649, when the thriving 
merchant, against the will of Governor Berke- 



io6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ley, removed to Maryland. The earliest date 
of the exodus given is 1643. John Chew was, 
therefore, one of the body that listened to the 
comfortable words conveyed in the king's 
letter, ''Given at oitr Coicrt of York the ^tJi of 
July, 1642." 

In this instrument, drawn up by the king's 
secretary, on the eve of the grand rebellion, 
the sovereign engages not to restore the de- 
tested Virginia Company to their rule over the 
colony, and expresses the royal approval of 
'' your acknowledgments of our great bounty 
and favors toward you, and your so earnest 
desire to continue under our immediate pro- 
tection." 

When the head of his royal master rolled 
on the scaffold, John Chew, who appears, from 
the hints transmitted to us of his individual 
traits, to have been of a provident and pacific 
turn of mind, was living upon the extensive 
estate deeded to him in the province of Mary- 
land, the original bulk of which was swollen by 
five hundred acres, paid for in tobacco, at the 
rate of ten pounds of the Virginia weed per 
acre. 

His eldest son, Samuel Chew, made a will 
before his death in 1676, bequeathing most of 



Cliveden 107 

the " Town of Herrington," with other prop- 
erties, including " Negroes, able-bodied Eng- 
lishmen, and hogsheads of tobacco," to his 
heirs. His Quaker wife, Anne Chew, n^e 
Ayres, was his executrix. Her son. Dr. Sam- 
uel Chew, removed, in mature manhood, to 
Dover, then included in the Province of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Anne Ayres had brought the whole family 
over to her peaceful faith, and Dr. Samuel 
(also known as Judge) Chew remained a 
member of the Society of Friends until the 
celebrated battle in the Assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania over the Governor's recommendation of 
a Militia Law. When this was passed, the 
Quaker members of the legislative body ap- 
pealed to the court over which Samuel Chew 
presided as Chief-Justice. With promptness 
that smacks of un-Friend-like indignation, they 
proceeded to expel him *' from meeting" upon 
his decision that " self-defense was not only 
lawful, but obligatory upon God's citizens." 

He may not have regretted the act of ex- 
cision, so far as it affected himself. His pub- 
lished commentary upon the temper it evinced 
is spirited to raciness. In it he declares the 
** Bulls of Excommunication " of his late 



io8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

brethren to be ''as full-fraught with fire and 
brimstone and other church artillery, as even 
those of the Pope of Rome." 

In a charore to the Grand lurv, delivered 
shortly after the publication of this philippic, 
he says of his belief that, in his public acts he 
was '' accountable to His Majesty alone, and 
subject to no other control than the laws of the 
land," 

" I am mistaken, it seems, and am account- 
able for what I shall transact in the Kine's 
Courts to a paltry ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
that calls itself a ' Monthly Meeting.' ' Tell 
it not In Gath, publish it not in Askelon ' !" 

Benjamin Chew, the eldest son of the pugna- 
cious and deposed Quaker, was born in 
November, 1722. His profession was the law, 
and he rose rapidly to eminence. Prior to 
his removal to Philadelphia In i 754, at the age 
of thirty-two, he was Speaker of the House of 
Delegates at Dover, Delaware. In 1755 he 
became Attorney-General of the State of 
Pennsylvania; In 1756, Recorder of the City 
of Philadelphia; In 1774, Chief-Justice of the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. 

His diplomatic yet decisive reply to one 
who, seeking to convict him of Toryism, 




CHIEF-JUSTICE BENJAMIN CHEW. 

FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN Tt 



Cliveden 1 1 1 

pushed him for a definition of high treason, 
is historic : 

" Opposition by force of arms, to the lawful authority 
of the King or his Ministers, is High Treason. But'' — 
[turning an unblenching front to those who tried to 
entangle him in his talk] — " in the moment when the 
King or his Ministers shall exceed the Constitutional 
authority vested in them by the Constitution — submis- 
sion to their mandate becomes Treason ! " 

Despite this doughty deHverance, his judi- 
cial quahiis as to expediency of overt rebelHon 
cost him his hberty in 1777. Fourteen years 
earHer he had boui^ht land on what is known 
as the Old Germantown Road, erected upon 
a commanding site a fine stone mansion, and 
given to the estate the name of Cliveden. 
Up to the date of the erection of this dwell- 
ing he resided winter and summer on Third 
Street, below Walnut, in the City of Phila- 
delphia. Washington and John Adams dined 
together with him there while Congress sat in 
Philadelphia, in 1774. Mr. Adams's letter 
relative to the '' turtle, flummery, and Ma- 
deira " of the banquet is well known. 

Neither congressional nor military influence 
availed aofainst the sentence that sent the 



112 Some Colonial Homesteads 

stately host and his friend, John Penn, under 
arrest to Fredericksburg, Virginia, for recu- 
sancy, in that they refused to sign a parole not 
to interfere with, or impede in any manner, the 
course of the new Government. Subse- 
quently, the exile was rendered more toler- 
able by permission to sojourn during the 
remaining term of banishment at the Union 
Iron \Wirks, owned by Mr. Chew, in the 
vicinity of Burlington, X. J. In 1778 came 
an imperative order from Congress for the 
rehabilitation of the two eminent, and, it was 
believed, unjustly suspected, citizens. 

A " biographical memoir " of Benjamin 
Chew published in 181 1, thus defines and 
justifies the position he maintained through- 
out the contest between the Colonies and the 
Parent Country. 

" His object was reform, rather than revolution — 
redress of grievances, rather than independence. Ac- 
cordingly, when the question of an entire separation of 
the colonies from the British empire began to be first 
agitated in private meetings, he was opposed to the 
measure, and when, at length, independence was de- 
clared, he thought the step precijMtate and rash. Nor 
could any consideration of interest, policy, or ambition 
induce him, after that epoch, to aid by his counsels 
proceedings which were contrarv to the decisions of his 



m 



Cliveden 113 

judgment, and, perhaps, I may add, to the affections of 
his heart. . . 

" As an apology for Mr. Chew's opposition to the pol- 
icy of independence when first declared, we might 
adduce the example of some of the most distinguished 
orators and statesmen of the day, whose dislike of the 
measure was no less strong and notorious than his. 
The only difference which marked their conduct on 
the occasion was that he perseveringly retained his 
original im})ressions, while thay, more pliable, and per- 
haps more prudent, changed with the current of public 
opinion." 

In the absence of the master, CHveden had 
seen strange things. Early on the morning 
of October 4, 1777, the American troops in 
pursuit of the retreating enemy, who had aban- 
doned tents and baggage at Wayne's impetu- 
ous charge, were surprised as they pressed 
down the Germantown Road, by a brisk fire 
of musketry from the windows of CHveden. 
A huriried council of war, collected about the 
Comniander-in-chief, acting upon General 
Kno>:'s dictum that " it was unmilitary to 
leave a garrisoned castle in their rear," sent 
an offtcer with a flag of truce to demand a sur- 
rend(-r. He was fired upon and killed. Can- 
non were planted in the road, and a steady 
fire \vith six-pounders opened upon the thick 



114 Some Colonial Homesteads 

walls. The balls rebounded like pebbles. 
The lower windows were closed and barred. 
The six companies of British soldiers that had 
occupied the building sent volley after volley 
from the ofratines of the cellars and from 
the second story. The gallant Chevalier de 
Maudit, scarcely twenty-one years of age, 
and Colonel Laurens, also in the prime of 
early manhood, forced a window at the back 
and, ordering their men to pile straw and hay 
against the door and fire it, leaped into a 
room on the ground floor. They were re- 
ceived by a pistol-shot that wounded Laurens 
in the shoulder, while a second, aimed at de 
Maudit, killed the English officer who had 
rushed forward to arrest him. Finding them- 
selves alone among foes, the commanci to fire 
and force the door not having been obeyed, 
the intrepid youths retreated backward to the 
window by which they had entered, dropped 
to the ground, and made their way to 
their comrades, under a hot hail of bullets. 
To the delay occasioned by the short, urisuc- 
cessful siege of Cliveden is generally attrib- 
uted the loss of the battle of Germantown to 
the Americans. But at least one historian is 
disposed to regard it 



Cliveden 115 

*' as another manifestation of the Divine interposition 
in behalf of these States. If General Washington had 
met with no obstacle, he would, under the thickness 
of the fog, have closed with the main body of the 
■enemy before he could have been apprised of its prox- 
imity, and thus his centre and a part of his left wing 
would have been committed to a general action with the 
whole British army." 

A descendant of the house of Chew puts a 
different face upon this affair :^ 

" General Washington was an intimate friend of the 
family, and, at the battle of Germantown, when Cliveden 
was occupied by a detachment of British troops, insist- 
ing that he was familiar with every part of the house, 
he mistook for English intrenchments an addition which 
had been put up since his last visit and ordered his men 
to fire into the house, shattering the doors and windows." 

The judicial reader can select what appears 
to him the more probable and consistent 
version of the incident. The old doors are 
exhibited as a proof that there was an attack 
from without. They were so battered by 
bullets that new ones had to be put into the 
ancient frames. 

Another and more precious relic of that 
stormy period is a small pamphlet containing an 

' Mrs. Sophia Howard Ward in The Century Magazine for 
March, 1894. 



ii6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

account of the '* Mischianza," a pageant " com- 
bining- the modern parade with the mediaeval 
tournament." given as a farewell entertain- 
ment on May i8. 177S, in honor of Sir Wil- 
liam Howe, then commanding the British 
troops in America. The narrative was written 
by Maior Andre, a favored guest at Cliveden. 
The four daughters of Judge Chew were 
celebrated for their beauty. Margaret, popu- 
larly known as "pretty IVggy."' was the 
especial object of the young otticer's admira- 
tion. 

Her great-granddaughter sets the souvenir 
vividly before us. with the picture of the writer 
who was Peggv's knight in the combination 
" show." 

" Faded and yellow with age, the little parchment 
vividly calls up before us the gallant young English ot- 
ticer, eager and full of keen interest, throwing himself 
with youthful ardor, with light-hearted seriousness, into 
this bit of superb frivolity. On the cover he has outlined 
a wreath of leaves around the initials * P. C.,' and he 
has made a water-color sketch to show the design and 
colors of his costume as a knight of the ' Blended Rose,* 
and that of his brother, Lieutenant William Lewis Andre, 
who acted as his esquire and bore his shield with its 
quaint motto, ' No rival.' The device, ' Two game 
cocks fighting," must have proved too difficult to draw, 



Cliveden 



117 



for he uses in his picture that of Captain Watson — a 
heart and a wreath of hiurel, ' Love and Glory.' " 

A part In the " INIischianza" was allotted to 
Margaret Shippen, the betrothed, and sliortly 




PEQQY" CHEW. 



afterward the wife of Benedict Arnold. At 
the last moment her father, Chief- Justice 
Shippen, forbade her appearance. 



iiS Some Colonial Homesteads 

Among the mementoes of Andre's memor- 
able sojourn at Cliveden are several poems 
(^by courtesy), addressed by him to his fair 
friend. Chancing to see her walking in the 
orchard, *' under green apple boughs," he 
dashed off this impromptu : 

" The Hebrews write and those who can 
Believe an apple tempted man 
To touch the tree exempt : 
Tho' tasted at a vast expense, 
'T was too delicious to the sense. 
Not mortally to tempt. 

But had the tree of knowledge bloomed. 
Its branches by much fruit perfumed. 
As here enchants my view — 
What mortal Adam's taste could blame. 
Who would not die to eat the same. 
When gods might wish a CAnc / " 

From Andre's b?'Oc/ni?'t we learn in what 
guise ** Miss P. Chew," — opposite whose name 
on the programme stand those of *" Captin 
Andre 26th" and "Esq. Mr. Andre 7th" — 
captivated the eyes of the spectators on that 
day : 

*' The ladies selected from the foremost in youths 
beautv and fashion, were habited in fancy dresses. They 
wore gauze Turbans spangled and edged with gold or 



Cliveden 1 19 

Silver, on the right side a veil of the same kind hung 
as lorn- 3S the vaisi, .and the left side of the Turban 
w^as enriched with pe^ and tassels of gold or Silver & 
cjesied ^ iih a feather. The dress was of the polonaise 
Kind and of white Silk with long sleeves, the Sashes 
which were worn round the waist and wexe tied with 
a large bow on Ae left side hnng venr low and were 
trimmed s^an^ed and fringed according to the Colours 
of the Kni^t. The Ladies of the black Champions 
were on the rig^t, those of the white on the left.** 

He wrote to her at parringf : 

" If at the close o: Tarar anc sirife. 
My destiny once n.ore 

Shonld in the various paths of Kfe. 
Conduct me to this shore : 

Shonld British banner? guard the land. 

And faction be restrained : 
And Cliveden's peaceful mansion stand 

Xo mote with blood bestained ; 
Say, wih thou tfa<^ receive again 

And wdcome to thy sight. 
The youth who bids with stilled pain 

His sad farewell to-night ? " 

Major Andre was a brave n;.. a> .:> 

fortunate as brave : but in perusing this se:.::- 
mental jingle, and hearingr of the drawinor in 
the possession of the Baltimore Howards, in 
which his own portrait in water-colors is 



120 Some Colonial Homesteads 



1 



sketched in the character of Miss Peggy 
Chew's knight, and " humbly-inscribed " to 
her. " bv her most devoted Knight and Ser- 
vant. I. A. Knt. Bd. Re.. Philadelphia. June 
2, 177S.'" we may be permitted a sighful 
thought of Honora Sneyd keeping the vestal 
tires of love and memory alight in her heart 
for her absent, and soon-to-be-dead lover. 

The fair Peggy did not pine in virgin love- 
liness for the handsome youth whose "sad 
farewell " acquires dignity not of itself, in the 
recollection of the brief path of life that re- 
mained to him after this was penned. With 
the buoyancy of a happy temperament, and 
hopefulness engendered by past triumphs, our 
belle thus moralizes in the letter expressive of 
her regret for the evacuation of Philadelphia 
by the gay and chivalric otticers : 

'' What is life, in short, but one continued 
scene of pain and pleasure, varied and chec- 
quered with black spots like the chess-board, 
onlv to set the fair ones in a purer light ? 

*' What a mixture of people have I lately 
seen I " she writes further. " I like to have 
sometliing to say to all." 

She evidently especially liked to sa\- a good 
many somethings to the pink of chivalry 



Clix'odcn 1 -M 

\vlu\sc untinicK" takiiiL^-oft was nunirnod h\ 
two coiuiiUMUs. ConilMiiini;" our knowKnloc 
oi the catholicity oi the acconiphshcd Major's 
adminition tor hcautw whcrcxcr toiiiul, with 
Miss lV\!:;v:'\''s wilhno-noss to ho anuiscd aiul 
adored, aiul hor " hii^h rohsh lor [)lcasurc," 
wo niviy rcas(^nahly assume that in the prett\- 
routine ol ball, tournanient And masque which 
maile the winter o( i;;S memorable to the 
"upper ten " oi the cit\' ot i^enealoi^ies, it was 
diamond cut dianu^nd lu'tween them. 

There was a brilliant weddiiiL^' in the tcnvn- 
house c^ii South Third Street in 17S7. Mis- 
tress MarL^'aret had cpieened it bra\eK" tc^r 
ten \ears in the loremost rank oi tashic^nable 
societN" before^ she bestowed her hand upon 
the accomplished i^entleman and warrior. 
Colonel John l^aL^er Howard of HaltinuMw 
Oistineiuished amonj^' the hioh-born ccMiipanx' 
assembled to orace the nuptials was Cieneral 
Washington, then President oi the Conven- 
tion that formed the Constitution of these 
Cnited States. The host. Chief-justice Chew, 
was, as has been said, a warm personal friend 
of the Commander-in-Chief and President, 
mutual reo-ard that continued as lon^- as they 
both lived. 



122 Some Colonial Homesteads 

We do not wonder — the wonder would be 
if the reverse were true — that pretty Peggy 
always kept a sure place on the sunny side of 
her heart for the ill-starred knight who wore 
her colors in the "Mischianza" and beguiled 
so many hours of possible ennui. The docu- 
ment descriptive of the merry-making was 
sacredly cherished by her while she lived, and 
formally bequeathed to her daughter, Mrs. 
William Read of Baltimore. It was quite 
as natural that her husband, loyal to the back- 
bone to the National cause, should, now and 
then, grow restive under her sentimental remin- 
iscences. To borrow again from the sprightly 
narrative of her o-reat-oranddauohter : 

** Xine years after tlie ' Mischianza,' when she had 
married Colonel John Eager Howard, the hero of 
Cowpens, she still loved to dwell upon ^[ajor Andre's 
charms, which frequently irritated her patriotic husband. 
Once, sitting at the head of her table at Belvidere, her 
home in Baltimore, entertaining some distinguished 
foreigners, she said, ' Major Andre was a most wittv 
and cultivated gentleman ' : whereupon Colonel Howard 

interrupted sternly, ' He was a spy, sir : nothing but 

a spy ! * " 

Cliveden, battered and scorched bv the 
short, sharp siege of that October morning. 




COLONEL JOHN EAGER HOWAhD. 

FROM A PAINTING BY CHESTER HARDING. 



Cliveden 125 

was sold by Mr. Chew in 1779 to Ulair 
McClcnachan. In 1797, ten years aftc^r pretty 
l\'^^)''s weddin!:;, her lather bought hack 
his counlr\'-seat. It was in htth: better con- 
(hlion than when Mr. McCU'iiachan i)urchased 
il, \('t, in his dc:sire to rei^ain possession, Mr. 
Chew nc'arly trehhnl the amount he had 
received for it. 

In-njaniin Chew ched at the ao"e of eighty- 
seven, Jan. 20, iSio. The hist puhhc office 
heUl h)' him was that of l^'esiih'nt-J udi^'e of 
the lli.^h Court of Errors and Appc^als ; a 
trust retained for fifteen years, and resigned 
when he was ei^ht)-three. 

His only son, Benjamin Chew, Jr., had hut 
a twelfth part of the ])rincely estate left by 
the father, there bein^- (;leven dauLj^hters. 
Comino- of a race of lawyers, he studied his 
profession, first in Philadelphia, then in En<r- 
land. In 1S25, during;- Lafayette's visit to 
America, he held a orancl reception at the 
(lermantown residence of the eminent jurist, 
who had then retired from the active duties 
of professional life. 

Mr. Chc;w died April 30, 1 CS44, at the ad- 
vanced ai^e of eii^hty-five. 

In a hale old 'di^c Clived(Mi stands, unmoved 



126 Some Colonial Homesteads 

by the fast-changing scenes about her. The 
walls are of rough gray stone ; the entrance 
is guarded by marble lions, blinded and 
defaced by age. To the right and left of 
the pillars dividing the stately hall from the 
staircase, hang full-length family portraits, 
older than the house. The iron hail that 
scarred the fa9ade of the mansion, left traces, 
like the writing of doom, upon the inner walls. 

The day of our visit to the ancient home- 
stead was bleak with wintry storm. The fine 
trees on the lawn bent and dripped with the 
heavy weight of rain. The four windows of 
the ereat drawinor-room showed little with- 
out except the gray pall wavering between 
us and the nearest houses. In the chimney 
burned a fire, the welcominor crlow of which 
prepared us for the reception accorded to the 
stranger within her gates by the gracious 
gentlewoman who arose from the sofa at our 
entrance. In a ripe old age that had not 
benumbed heart or mind, Miss Anne Penn 
Chew, the then owner of Cliveden, was a pict- 
uresque figure of whom I would fain say more 
than the restrictions of this chapter warrant. 

Over the mantel is the portrait of her father, 
of whom it is written that " he led a blameless 



4 



Cliveden 129 

life of princely hospitalit)- and benevolence, 
doing- good. . . . He was a tirm friend, an 
indulgent father and an elegant gentleman of 
polished manners, singular symmetry of form 
and feature, and great strength." Antique 
mirrors, in carved frames, that once belonged 
to \\'illiam Penn, hang between the windows 
and in a recess by the mantel. 

The dining-room across the hall has a cav- 
ernous fireplace which recalls the generous hos- 
pitality of former years. Miss Chew related, 
as we lingered to admire it. that the collation 
served at the Lafayette reception was laid in 
the drawing-room, and that the painter of the 
scene sacrificed historical verity to artistic effect 
in setting the principal actors between the pillars 
of the hall with the staircase as a backo-roimd. 

The old Chew coach occupies the farthest 
corner of the carriage-house. It is roomy be- 
yond the compass of the modern imagination, 
and is swung so high from the ground that one 
is helped to a comprehension of the upsettings 
and overturnings that enter so frequently and 
naturally into the stories of that time. 

In the back wall of the kitchen, built into a 
niche of solici masonry, is an old well. This 
part of the house was standing on the ground 



I ;o Some Colonial Homesteads 



1! 



bought by Judge Chew in 1703. Tradition 
has it that the well was dug- in the recess, which 
could, at short notice, be enclosed with heavy 
doors, in order to secure a supply of water 
within the dwelling if it were attacked by In- 
dians. 

Mr. Beverly Chew, the scholarly President 
of the Grolier Club of New York City, and 
eminent as a book-lover and collector ol rare 
prints and priceless " first editions." is de- 
scended from the ancient stock through Joseph 
Chew, a younger brother of the immigrant, 
lohn. Every vestige of the dwelling built by 
the latter upon the fertile island in the James 
River has disappeared, but the site is still 
pointed out to the curious visitor. 




CHEW COACiH. 



VI 



THE MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN, 
(PHILADELPHIA) 



HISTORIAN, painter, and poet have made 
familiar to us the story of the imprisoned 
Huguenot, condemned to cHe from starxation, 
who was kept ahve by the seeming accident 
that a hen laid an egg daily on the sill of his 
irrated window. 

From this French Perot descended Elliston 
Perot Morris, the present proprietor of the old 
house on the Germantown Road, which is the 
subject of this sketch. 

It was built in 1772 by a German, David 
Deshler, long and honorably known as a Phila- 
delphia merchant. A pleasant story goes that 
the facade of the solid stone mansion would 
have been broader by some feet had the sylvan 
tastes of the owner allowed him to fell a fine 
plum-tree that grew to the left of the proposed 

131 



IS- Some Colonial Homesteads 

site. The garden was the marvel of the region 
during his occupancy of the count r)--seat. and 
was tianked by thrifty orchards and vineyards. 
At Deshler's death in i 792, the Germantown 
estate passed into the hands of Colonel Isaac 
Franks, an officer who had served in the Rev- 
olutionary- War. He had owned it but a year, 
when the yellow fever broke out in Philadel- 
phia, then the seat of tho National Govern- 
ment. Colonel Franks with his family retreated 
hurriedly to the higher ground and protecting 
mountain-barrier of Bethlehem, although Ger- 
mantown was considered a safe refuge by the 
citizens of Philadelphia, Shortly after the 
Franks's flitting, the Colonel received a visit 
from President Washington's man of affairs, a 
Germantown citizen. He was charged with an 
offer to rent the commodious residence on the 
Old Road for the use of the President and his 
family. The patriotic cordiality with which 
the retired officer granted the request did not 
carrv him beyond the bounds of careful frugal- 
ity. He made minute mention in his expense- 
book of the cost of sweeping and garnishing- 
the house for the reception of the distinguished 
guests, also of ** cash paid for cleaning my 
house and putting it in the same condition the 



The Morris House 135 

President received it in." This last bill was 
two dollars and thirty cents. 

From this account-book we learn what were 
the expenses of transportation of Colonel 
Franks and family, back and forth to Bethle- 
hem, and what was paid for the hired furnished 
lodginos in the mountain villai^e. There were 
lost durino- the summer of exile (presumably 
under Lad)- Washington's administration), 
''one fiat-iron, value is., one large fork, four 
plates, three ducks, four fowls," and consumed 
or wasted by the temporary tenants, " one 
bushel potatoes and one cwt. of hay." 

Those items swelled the sum expended for 
removals and hire of Bethlehem quarters and 
the rent received for Germantown premises to 
$131.56. 

The President, his wife, and their adopted 
children, George Washington Parke Custis and 
Nelly Custis, lived in health and peace in sub- 
urban quarters during the summer of the pesti- 
lence. The boy went to school at the Old 
Academy. The grounds of the school ad- 
joined those of what was still known as the 
Deshler Place. A few days after the transfer 
of the Executive party from town to country, 
a group of boys playing on the pavement in 



136 Some Colonial Homesteads 

front of the Academy parted to left and right, 
cap in hand, before a majestic figure that 
paused at the foot of the steps. 

" Where is George Washington Parke Cus- 
tis ? " demanded the General. 

Charles Wister, a Germantown boy, plucked 
up courage and voice, and told where the great 
man's ward might be found. 

Another pupil in the Academy, Jesse Wain, 
whose home was in Frankford, accompanied 
Parke Custis from school one afternoon, and 
played with him in the garden, until General 
Washington came out of the back door, and 
bade his adopted son " come in to tea, and 
bring his young friend with him." Nearly 
three quarters of a century afterward, an old 
man asked permission, upon revisiting Ger- 
mantown, to go into the tea- or breakfast-room, 
back of the parlors in the Morris house, and 
sittinor down there recalled each incident of 
the never-to-be-foro^otten *' afternoon out." 
The erave kindness of the head of the house- 
hold, the sweet placidity of the mistress, and 
the merry school-fellow whose liking had won 
for him this distinoruished honor, — this is the 
picture for which we are indebted to Mr. 
Wain's reminiscences. 



The Morris House 137 

The hegira from Philadelphia must have 
taken place early in the spring, for Lady 
Washington pleased herself and interested her 
neighbors, by raising hyacinths under globes 
of cut glass. There were six of these, and 
upon her return to Philadelphia, she gave them 
to the young daughter of the deceased David 
Deshler, to whom she had taken an especial 
likinof. A fragment of the elass is still treas- 
ured by a descendant of Catherine Deshler. 

The occupation of the Morris House by the 
President and his family is the incident in the 
history of the homestead which abides most 
vividly with us as we pass from one to another 
of rooms which are scarcely altered from what 
they were in his day. The walls are wain- 
scoted up to the ceiling ; the central hall ; the 
fine staircase at the right ; the hinges mortised 
Into the massive front-door ; the wrought-Iron 
latch, eighteen inches lone, that falls into a 
stout hasp ; the partitions and low ceilings of 
the spacious chambers, — are the same as when 
the floors echoed to the tread of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and ministers of state and 
finance discussed the weal of the Infant nation 
with him who will never cease to be the Na- 
tion's Hero. 



1 3^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

We lino'er longest in the tea-room, which is 
the coziest of the suite. The wide-throated 
chimney is built diagonally across one corner ; 
the fireplace is surrounded by tiles of exceed- 
ino- beauty and oreat ao-e. In another corner, 




THE COZIEST OF THE SUITE/' 



on the same side of the room, with a earden- 
ward window between it and the chimne}', is a 
cupboard which was also here in i 793. Behind 
the glass doors of this cabinet are the cup and 
saucer and plate of old India blue china, which 



Jl 



The Morris House 139 

were used on the evening of Jesse Wain's 
visit, with other choice bits of bric-a-brac. 
The rear window, opening now upon a small 
conservatory, then gave upon a long grape- 
arbor, running far down the garden. Between 
the drawing-room door and this window — the 
tair, extensive pleasure-grounds, slee|)ing in the 
afternoon sunshine, visible to all at the table 
— the Washingtons took their "dish of tea" 
in security, shadowed only by thoughts of the 
plague-stricken city, lying so near as to sug- 
gest sadder topics than the sweet-hearted host- 
ess would willingly introduce. It is an idyllic 
domestic scene, and the lovelier for the cloudy 
background. 

The ''pitcher-portrait" of Washington in 
the possession of Mr. Morris was presented to 
his great-grandfather, Governor Samuel Mor- 
ris, captain, during the War of the Revolution, 
of the First Cit)' Froop. Fhese pitchers were 
made in France, and were tokens of the dis- 
tinguished esteem of the General for those 
honored as the recipients. The likeness was 
considered so far superior to any other extant 
at that time, that an order for duplicates was 
sent to Paris when the first supply was given 
awa)'. Unfortunately, the model had been de- 



HO Some Colonial Homesteads 

stroyed after the original requisition was filled, 
and the attempt to reproduce the design was 
unsatisfactory as to likeness and execution, a 
circumstance which enhances the value of the 
oriorlnals. 

Mr. Morris justly reckons as scarcely second 
in worth to this beautiful relic, an autograph 
letter from Washington to his crreat-crrand- 
father, Governor IMorris, thankine him for the 
gallant service rendered in the War of Inde- 
pendence by the First City Troop. 



VII 



THE SCHUYLER AND COLFAX HOUSES, 
POMPTON, NEW JERSEY 

SIX hundred feet above the sea level; 
screened by two mountain ranges from 
sea-foofs and shore rawness ; watered as the 
garden of the Lord by brooks, brown and 
t3risk, racing down from the hills — Pompton 
is the bonniest nook in New Jersey. 

Henry Ward Beecher said of the plucky 
little State, that the trailing arbutus, fabled to 
spring from the blood of heroes, grows more 
luxuriantly within her bounds than anywhere 
else. Were the fantasy aught but a fable, 
Pompton and its environs would be overrun 
with the brave daintiness of the patriot's flower. 

It was situated on the King's Highway, be- 
tween New York and Morristown, and the 
tide of war ebbed and flowed over it many 

141 



142 Some Colonial Homesteads 

times during the fateful years of the Revolu- 
tion. In a small yellow house that stood, 
within the last ten years, upon a corner-lot 
equidistant from the Pompton station of the 
Montclair and Greenwood Lake Railway, and 
that of the New York, Susquehanna and West- 
ern, Washington had his headquarters during 
his progresses to and from Morristown. I 
have talked with old people who recollected 
seeing him stand in the rude porch, reviewing 
the dusty lines of troops as they filed by. 
Hooks, that once supported muskets, were in 
the ceiling of the " stoop," and the floor of 
the largest room was indented by much ground- 
ing of arms. 

The beetling brow of the loftiest of the lines 
of hills interlocking the cup-like valley, was the 
observatory of the Commander-in-Chief on sev- 
eral occasions, and bears, in memory of the ma- 
jestic Presence, the name of " Federal Rock." 

In Lord Stirlinor's forore, the foundations of 
which are yet stanch in the adjacent Wanaque 
Valley, was welded the mighty chain stretched 
by Washington across the Hudson to prevent 
the passage of the British ships, some links of 
which are still to be seen on the parade-ground 
at West Point. 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 145 

Upon another of the heights forming the 
amphitheatre in which are the villages of Pomp- 
ton and Ramapo Lake, several companies of 
Federal soldiers mutinied in the winter of 
I 778-9. They had had no pay for months ; the 
weather was severe ; rations were poor in qual- 
ity and scanty, and their hearts were wrung 
by tidings of almost starving families in their 
distant homes. It was resolved to desert the 
bleak fastness, disband, and return to their 
wives and children. News of the revolt was 
sent to Washington at Morristown. He dis- 
patched the American General Howe, with a 
body of troops, to quell it. The insurgents 
were surprised and surrounded, and yielded 
without bloodshed to the superior force. A 
court-martial was held — " standing on the 
snow," says the chronicle with unconscious 
pathos — and two of the ring-leaders were sen- 
tenced to be shot by their comrades and fellow- 
offenders. The squad detailed for the purpose 
vainly protested, with tears, against the cruel 
office. The blindfolded leaders were buried 
where they fell. Their graves are pointed out 
to the visitor who climbs to the site of the 
forest-camp. Cellars lined with stone, shelv- 
ino- rocks blackened and seamed on the under 



146 Some Colonial Homesteads 

side by smoke and fire, and the outlines of 
huts that were built up with loose stones, — 
are vestiees of that bitter winter and the 
traofic culmination of the woes of the des- 
perate soldiery. 

Another encampment was in Pompton town- 
ship, within sight of that on the mountain-side, 
and so much more kindly planned as to con- 
venience and comfort that the contrast may 
have aupfmented the discontent of the mutinous 
band. For two winters, part of a regiment of 
American troops occupied a gentle slope with 
a southern exposure, on the bank of the 
Ramapo River. A virgin forest kept off north 
and east winds, and the camp was within less 
than half a mile of the main road. Soon after 
peace was declared, a great rock in the middle 
of the river was used as a foundation for a 
dam that widened the stream into a lake. A 
fall of thirty feet supplies a picturesque feature 
to the landscape, and valuable water-power for 
the Pompton Steel and Iron Works at the 
foot of the hill. Sunnybank, the summer cot- 
tage of Rev. Dr. Terhune, is built upon the 
pleasant camping-ground aforesaid. In clear- 
ing the wooded slope, remains of stockaded huts 
were unearthed, with bullets, flints, gunlocks, 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 149 

and, in a bed of charcoal left by a camp-fire, a 
sword of British workmanship, in perfect pres- 
ervation. The royal arms of England are 
etched upon the blade ; on the hih, scratched 
rudely as with a nail, or knife-point, are the 
initials "E.L." The steel is encrusted with 
rust-gouts that will not out. Who, of the 
miserably equipped rebel soldiery, could aftord 
to lose from his /fvino- hand a weapon so good 
and true ? 

The steeper hill across the lake, on the 
lower slopes and at the base of which nestle the 
villas and cottages of ** summer folk" from the 
metropolis, took the name of " Barrack Hill" 
from the officers' quarters overlooking the camp. 

The Marquis de Chastelleux, from whose 
Traz'i/s /;/ \orf/i Aiiicrica quotation has al- 
ready been made in these pages, writes of 
this region in i 7S0 : 

" Approaching Pompton I was astonished at 
the degree of perfection to which agriculture 
is carried." He mentions as especially well- 
cultivated and fertile the lands of " the Mande- 
ville brothers,^ whose father was a Dutchman 
and cleared the farms his sons now till." 

^ A daughter of one of the Mandeville brothers married Dr. William 
Washington Colfax. 



150 Some Colonial Homesteads 

" Being" very dark, it was not without ditti- 
culty that I passed two or three rivulets, on 
very small bridges," establishes the trend of 
the road that landed him that night at Court- 
heath's Tavern (on the site of which a time- 
battered hostelry still stands). The landlord, 
a young fellow of four-and-twenty, complained 
bitterly that he was obliged to live in this out- 
ot-the-wa\" place. "He has two handsome 
sisters, well-dressed eirls who wait on travel- 
lers with grace and coquetry," is a sly touch 
worthy of the writer's nationality. He atones 
for it by honest surprise at seeing upon a great 
table in the parlor Milton. Addison, Richard- 
son, and other authors of note. '* The cellar 
was not so well stocked as the library." He 
could "get nothing but vile cider-brandy of 
which he must make grog." The bill for a 
night's lodging and food for himself, his ser- 
vants, and horses, was sixteen dollars. 

From this showing, we infer that Dutch 
intelligence and integrit}' were distanced by 
Dutch enterprise even in the wilderness. He 
recounts, as we might tell of a casual encounter 
with a neighbor, that, two days later, he met 
General and Lad\- Washington on the Morris- 
town road, travelling in their post-chaise, in 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 151 

which room)' con\c)'ancc the)' uisistcd he 
should take a seat. 

There were skirmishes, many and blood)', 
upon these beautiful hills. An encounter in 
the Morristown Road on Pompton Plains at- 
tained the dio'nity of a battle, and the slain 
were buried in the i;rave)ard o{ the wayside 
church. In the garden behind W^ashinoton's 
headquarters, w^as duo- up in 18S9, a solid silver 
spur that may have clamped the august heel 
of the Nation's hero. The Hat at the left of 
the Sunn)bank orchard was j)avecl with thou- 
sands of tlat stones for the convenience of tak- 
ing- horses and wao-ons to the w^ater's edoe. 
These were removed a few^ years a^o. Amoni;- 
the matted roots beneath them was found, at 
one spot, a bed of partially fashioned arrow-- 
heads, and, nearer the woods, a o-^'^^'C, with 
roughly hewn stones at head and foot — per- 
haps the last restinor-place of a sachem of the 
once powerful tribe of Pompiton Indians, — 
perhaps of " E. L." Who know^s ? 

Both the camp i no-grounds I have mentioned, 
and five thousand five hundred acres besides 
of mountain and plain, were deeded by royal 
letters of patent to Arent Schuyler in 1695. 
The homestead founded by him stands diago- 



152 Some Colonial Homesteads 



nally across the lake from Sunnyhank. In full 
sight, although three quarters of a mile away. 
A rampart of mountains defends it from the 
blasts which rush down the northern gorge, 
throuj^h which, from the crest of Barrack Hill, 
the naked eye can trace on a clear day the 
outline of Old Cro' Nest, opposite West Point. 
Philip Petersen Schmler. the founder of the 

i^"""" "' ''j g r"^ )^' ~~ " ' laroe and Influ- 

cntlal family In 
America bearing 
the name, emi- 
grated from Am- 
sterdam, Holland, 
In 1650, and settled 
:n Albany (^then 
Reverwvck\ 

This Is his entry 
in the famll\- Bible 
of an event which 
occurred the same 
year. 

*' In the year of our Lord 1650. the 12 de- 
cember. Have I, Philip Peterse Schuyler from 
Amsterdam, old about 2 " (illegible) " years 
married for my wife Margrltta van Sllchten- 
horst. born at Xvkerck old 22 vears mav the 




SCHUYLER COAT-OF-ARN' 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 153 

good o-od grant us a long and peaceful life to 
our salvation Amen." 

His life was neither long nor peaceful. His 
decease, jotted down in the same Bible by the 
hand of his wife, took place when he was less 
than sixty years old. The services rendered 
city, State, and church in his thirty years' resi- 
dence in the land of his adoption, his courage, 
steadfastness and energy, make his a marked 
name In those early annals. He bore the title 
of " Captain " at his death, and is mentioned 
in contemporary documents as " Commissioner 
of Justice in Albany." 

From the eight children who survived him 
sprang such noble branches as the \^an Cort- 
landts, \^an Rensselaers, \'erplancks, and Liv- 
ingstons. His eldest son, Peter, was the first 
Mayor of Albany, and in 16S9, Commandant 
of Fort Orange in that city. 

Johannes, another son, we learn from a fam- 
ily MS. embrowned and blotched by time, 

"Was Captain at 22, and in 1690 led a Company of 
29 Christians and 120 Savages, as far as La Praise, in 
Canada, near ^Montreal, where he took 19 Prisoners and 
destroyed for the enemies 150 head of cattle, and subse- 
quently, after an absence of 17 days, returned in safety 
to Albany. He is said to have had great influence 



154 Some Colonial Homesteads 

with the Indians and was the grandfather of General 
Philip Schuyler, one of the noted chieftains of the Revo- 
lution," 

The birth of Arent Schuyler is duly entered 
in the Bible thus : 

" 1662, the 25 June is born our fourth son 
named Arent van Schuyler may the Lord God 
let him grow up in virtues to his Salvation 
Amen." 

The father interpolated the *' van " in the 
names of his children until 1666. Philip, Jo- 
hannes, and Margritta are written down simply, 
" Schuyler." 

The wife of the first Philip and for twenty- 
eight years his loyal relict, was one of the fa- 
mous women of the day. She had sole control 
of her husband's large estate and managed it 
ably. 

An amusing bit of testimony to her maternal 
devotion is given in a letter written by the ob- 
noxious Leisler to the three commissioners 
sent by him to Albany to assume control of 
municipal and colonial affairs there. Peter 
Schuyler was then Mayor. The usurper of 
the Lieutenant-Governorship writes to his 
agents of a tale " that ye Widow Schuyler 
beat Captain Milborne, and that you all three 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 155 

were forced to fly out of ye towne and were 
gone to Esopus, and Peter Schuyler was in ye 
fort." 

" It was mere rumor," comments a family 
record, " but it proved she was a woman of 
spirit and resolution, more, that her influence 
was a power which her enemies feared." 

This was in 1690. Six years earlier, her son 
Arent (signifying "eagle") bought a house 
from his thrift-loving mother, to be paid for in 
peltry, in two instalments of a hundred beavers 
each, hung a live eagle in a cage on the outer 
wall in lieu of a door-plate, married, and went 
to housekeeping with Jenneke Teller. 

In imitation of the will made by Philip 
and Margritta Schuyler — the provisions of 
which were conscientiously carried out by the 
widow, — Arent and his wife, soon after their 
marriage, united in a testament which left the 
survivor sole legatee of "all the estate and 
personal property ... all and everything 
which they now possess (may he or she re- 
marry or not) without being held to pay over 
to the parents or friends or anybody else, even 
a stiver's worth." 

In 1690, Arent Schuyler joined a party sent 
under Captain Abraham Schuyler to watch 



15^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

the French near Crown Point. While on this 
duty, Arent volunteered to lead into Canada 
a company of eight Indian scouts, himself 
being the only white man. The expedition 
returned in satetw having" made thorou^i'h re- 
connoissances. killed two French pickets and 
captured one. The enterprise gained for him 
much credit and a captaincy. His familiarity 
with Indian dialects caused him to be chosen 
as ambassador, on divers occasions, to hostile 
and friendly tribes. His proven courage and 
his diplomacy were not more notable than the 
detailed exactness of his monetary accounts 
with the government. Xot an item of horse- 
hire : of Holland shirts furnished to chiefs : of 
crackers, peas and ferriage, was omitted from 
the bills rendered by shrewd Widow Schu}-ler's 
fourth son. 

Arent Schuyler removed to what one kins- 
man biographer calls " the wilds of Xew jer- 
sey " between i 701 and i 706. The joint will of 
himself and bride was, of course, a reciprocal 
affair, with equal risks on both sides, but the 
innings remained with the always lucky hus- 
band. He fell heir to every stiver and stitch 
of Jenneke Teller's share of the propertv in 
1700. and married Swantie Dvckhu\se in i ~02. 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 157 

In I 710, he bought a phintation on the Passaic 
River near Newark. Just as he was beginning 
to fear that the lands were unproductive, and 
to meditate a speedy sale, a negro slave dis- 
covered a copper mine which established his 
master's fortune beyond the reach of a turn of 
fate. 

Philip, the eldest son of Arent the Lucky, 
was left upon the patrimonial acres at Pomp- 
ton when his father transferred his residence 
to Belleville, New Jersey. He was a man of 
note among his neighbors, possessing much of 
the thrift and industry belonging to the blood. 
He represented Passaic County in the Legis- 
lature for several years. 

His son, Arent (2), added to the estate the 
farm bought in 1739 from Hendrick Garritse 
Van Wagenen, on which the homestead 
stands. This Arent, with his son Adoniah, 
occupied it during the Revolution, and in a 
peaceful old age related many and strange 
tales of that troublous era. 

A French soldier, ill with fever, was brought 
to Mr. Schuyler's hospitable door from the 
camp across the river, taken in and nursed by 
the family and servants. His disease proved 
to be smallpox of which he died. A low 



158 Some Colonial Homesteads 

mound in the orchard shows where he was 
buried. The family influence with the Indians, 
of whom there were many in the nearest 
mountains, was transmitted from generation 
to generation. Adoniah, when a boy, talked 
with them in their own language, employed, 
when grown, Indian men on the farm, and 
squaws in the house. Indian boys and girls 
played freely about the doors with the children 
of the second Arent. 

While the conflicting armies were surging 
back and forth over the Debatable Ground of 
the Ramapo Valley, Arent Schuyler called in 
cattle and horses every night, and sent them 
into the friendly mountains at the rear of his 
house, under the care of trustworthy laborers. 
Provisions were secreted ingeniously, and 
crops put into the ground with agonizing 
misgivings as to who would reap and consume 
them, 

The dwellinor has been twice remodelled in 
this century. It is a substantial stone struc- 
ture, with outlying barns larger than itself. 
The walls are very thick and an air of restful 
comfort pervades the premises. Peacocks 
strut, and guinea-fowls clack noisily where 
Indian children played with Philip Schuyler's 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses i6i 

grandsons. Plough and hoe still bring up 
arrowheads in the long-cultivated fields. The 
ground would seem to have been sown with 
them as with grain. 

Mr. Cornelius Schuyler, an honored citizen 
of Pompton, and the last in the direct male 
line represented by Arent (i), Philip, Arent 
(2) and Adoniah, died Sept. 14, 1868, in his 
seventy-fifth year. Mrs. Williams, his married 
daughter, and her husband. Dr. Williams, dwell 
in the quiet spaciousness of the old house. 

Of the many thousand Pompton acres owned 
by the race that knew so well how to fight and 
to traffic, only the extensive home-tract remains 
to those of the blood and lineage. Of the 
homes inherited and made for themselves by 
the children of the second Philip Schuyler, all 
but two have passed into other hands. 

Major Anthony Brockholls, sometime Gov- 
ernor of the Province of New York, and at 
a later day Mayor of New York City, was the 
friend of Arent (i) Schuyler and a copartner 
in speculation in New Jersey lands. 

" These gentlemen bought of the Indians nearly all 
the land now comprised in Wayne Township, and ac- 
quired the title from some New Jersey proprietaries on 
November nth, 1695. In the same year they erected 



i62 Some Colonial Homesteads 

homesteads within a few hundred yards of one another. 
The house built by Schuyler stands yet and is occupied 
by William Colfax, one of his descendants. That built 
by Brockholls has disappeared and on the site is one 
more modern, occupied by the family of the late Major 
W. W. Colfax, another offshoot of the Schuyler-Colfax 
stock." 

This extract is from a paper kindly given to 
me by Dr. William Schuyler Colfax of Pomp- 
ton, who is himself a lineal descendant of 
Arent (i) Schuyler. From the same source 
we learn that the '' second settlement in w^hat 
is now Passaic County was made by Arent 
Schuyler and Anthony Brockholls in 1694- 

1695." 

The old house was, then, Schuyler's home 
between 1 700 and the date of his removal to 
Belleville, and has been in the family quite as 
long as the larger building nearly a mile away 
and on the other side of the lake. 

Philip Schuyler, the son of the first Arent, 
had eleven children besides the namesake son 
who inherited the Van Wagenen farm along 
with others. Of the dozen, nine grew to man's 
and woman's estate. Especial good fortune 
seems to have followed Arent's name and line, 
for we find from Dr. Colfax's MS. that Arent's 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 163 

son Caspar — or Casparus, as another record 
has it — inherited a large estate at his father's 
death. Furthermore, that Caspar '' had in 
some manner acquired the adjoining Brockholls 
lands." 

He had but one child, — 

" One fair daughter and no more, 
The which he loved passing well," — 

if unstinted indulgence while he lived, and the 
bequest to her, in dying, of all his worldly 
goods, were proofs of parental affection. The 
beautiful Ester — or Hester — familiarly known 
to kindred and neighbor as " Miss Hetty," 
was in the fifth generation from ''ye Widow 
Schuyler " who beat and chased the three 
Royal Commissioners sent to eject her son 
Peter from the Mayoralty. The family 
" spirit and resolution " dryly commended by 
the chronicler of the affair, had not lost 
strength with the passage of years. If the 
Widow Schuyler's spirit were a home-brew of 
sparkling cider, her very-great-granddaughter's 
was the same beverage grown "hard" with 
the keeping. Her beauty and her fortune 
attracted a swarm of beaux, and her successes 
probably kept her In a good humor in her 



I04 Some Colonial Homesteads 

\nsitors' sigliL While Washington was en- 
camped at Towowa, seven miles away, he was 
on several occasions her most honored o-uesu 
We may be sure that the bravest of the silks 
and satins — that, her neighbors said, made it 
unnecessan- for them to look around to see 
who was rustling up the aisle of the old colonial 
church ^still standing) — ^were donned when the 
General and stall were expected to dinner, 
and that the youthful hostess made a bonny 
picture as she courtesied in the Dutch door- 
way in acknowledgment of his magiiilicent 
salutation. 

In the train of the Commander-in-Chief was 
a handsome youth who, although but nineteen 
years of age, was second-lieutenant of \\ ash- 
ington's Life-Guard. He came of a Frencli 
family that had settled in Wethersheld, Conn., 
in 165 1. It may have been the dash and 
\4vacity which went with his blood that com- 
mended him to Miss Hetty's favor. His 
rivals included others of the General's staff. 
When the home-brew was the sharper for ten 
or twelve years of married life, she used to 
bemoan herself that **she had had her pick of 
nine, and had chosen the worst of the lot," 

** After a brief and vioorous wooinor. Lieu- 



Schuxlcr aiul I'ollax Houses 103 



tenant Coll'ax Inwuno cMiL^ai^cd to Mstor. And 
married hcv M the cU>sc o( the war." 

\\c was l\i|nain oi [\\c late-CiiKird In' now, 
and had a ropuiation tor hra\or\ that should 
ha\o toniporod with jusiieo tho tart training; 
to which tho spoiled lH\uit\- suhjooiod luni 
from an oarK' period o\ their loini. but ne\ca* 
nnited, lixes. l\\en alter he heeame Cioneral 
Colfax, and had won nc^w lain\^ls in the War ot 
iSiJ, we hear ot her daaxin^;- in an c^pen ba- 
rouche oxer the short mile separatin^^" her 
homestead from the Retormed Patch Church, 
the deneral ridiu:^- alon:^sidc\ and on the toot- 
board behind two colored pa^^es. the one to 
carr\- alter her 10 the Schu\ler pew tootstool 
and fan in summer, or a warmin^^-pan in win- 
ter, the other to bear her train up tlu^ aisle. 
Her husband was an adjunct to the state she 
kept up to the da\" ot her demise. makiuL^' her 
boast, within a tew weeks oi [\\M desirable 
event, that she had ncner condnxl her own 
hair or put on her own shoes and stockings. 
Dutch tather and b^'ench husband sc\an to 
have been on a par in the worse than folK' oi 
humoring" caprices which waxed with indul- 
g'ence into absurdities that are anuMiL^- the 
most amusing:- of xilkii^e tales. She would 



i66 Some Colonial Homesteads 

drink no water except such as was brought 
fresh from a well live hundred yards distant 
from the house, and burned none except hick- 
or\- wood. If this were not forthcoming- at 
her call she would toss into the lire whatever 
lay nearest her hand, were it gown, or shawl, 
or silken scarf. She would not allow a black 
beast or fowl to live upon the place, and one 
of the fiercest quarrels between the ill-mated 
pair was because her husband had suffered 
her to eat beef bought of a neighbor who had 
slauohtered a black cow. When he offended 
her beyond the possibility of forgiveness by 
selling a tract of land without her permission, 
she retired loftily to her chamber, and did not 
emerge from the seclusion for ten vears. 
When the time she had set for herself and to 
him was up. she came forth, richly dressed, 
ordered her carriage, and drove to church as 
if nothing had happened. 

With all her intolerable whims, she retained 
to the last her shrewd intelligence and ready 
wit, and, when she willed to be pleasing, her 
captivating manner. The six children born 
to her loved her in spite of the flurries and 
tempests of a temper they and their father 
understood, it nobodv else entered into the 



Schuyler and Colfax Houses 169 

comprehension thereof. She was one of the 
'' characters " of the times and region, and her 
story gives a flavor of peppery romance to the 
long, low, hip-roofed house. Each of the 
three sons who attained manhood was a citi- 
zen of more than ordinary intelligence and 
prominence. Schuyler, the eldest, became 
the father of a Vice-President of the United 
States : William Washington, named for his 
father and his father's beloved Chief, was an 
able and successful physician, and one of the 
celebrities of the township. His do/i mots are 
still retailed by his old acquaintances and 
neighbors. Throughout his life he was a 
stubborn Democrat, and a friend, one day in 
the summer of 1868, showed him with mis- 
chievous satisfaction the newspaper announce- 
ment of the nomination of Grant and Colfax. 
The doctor read the article through without 
the change of a muscle. 

'' That ticket," he said then, quietly, " is like a 
kanoraroo. All the strencrth is in the Jiind IcQsy 

George, the third son, built a homestead 
upon the foundation of the Brockholl's house. 
It is still occupied by his descendants. 

The ''old place" is tenanted by the only 
son of Dr. William Washinorton Colfax. 



ijo Some Colonial Homesteads 

The fourth WiUiam, to whom I am in- 
debted for much interesting information 
respecting the family, has in his possession 
a miniature of General — then Lieutenant — 
Colfax, which the enamored young officer 
caused to be painted for the fair and spicy 
Hetty during their engagement ; also a pair 
of beautifully mounted pistols made by Thone 
of Amsterdam. They were given to his favor- 
ite lieutenant bv Washington at the close of 
the war. A great-granddaughter treasures 
as an odd but precious relic, a man's night- 
cap made by Lad\ Washington and presented 
to Captain Colfax with her own hands. The 
house contains tables, chairs, and other ancient 
furniture antedating the stirring Revolution- 
ar}- days that brought the boy-warrior to the 
arms — and tongue — of his imperious bride. 



VIII 

THE VAN CC^RTl.ANDT MANOIM l( )IISI: 

01 V A U S r 1', \' I', N s 1', V A \ C^ ) K r 1 , A N I ) r, 
a soKlicr in the l)iiUli West Iiuliaii serv- 
ice, accompanied William Kiell Lo /Xmerica in 

lie came ol a noMe I'rench Tamil)- (Cour- 
land) loiii; - resident in 
Holland. In i().|S, he left 
tlu! service o^ ihe com- 
pany, and a )-ear later 
his signature appeared 
amono- those o'i the 
"Nine Men" who pre- 
sented to the West In- 
dian Co. a i)rotest a<»ainst 

, , - . , \ VAN CORTLANDTCOAT-OF-ARMS. 

the maladmmistration of motto, "virtus smi munus." 
Kieft and Stuyvesant. In 1654, he was a 
Commissioner from New Amsterdam to settle 




71 



i;- Some Colonial Homesteads 

dirficukies w^ith the Indians after the Esopus 
massacre. 

He was, also, an Elder in the Reformed 
Dutch Church of which ** Everardus Bogardus, 
Dominie of New Amsterdam," was the spirit- 
ual leader. The worthy pastor had wedded, 
in 163S. the ''Widow lans," otherwise Anneke 
Jansen, who brought with her to her new hus- 
band's abode the five children she had borne 
to her first husband. It was considered that 
the clergyman had made an ineligible match, 
the bride having no down,- save ** a few acres 
of wild land." The undesirable estate, regis- 
tered after her second marriage, as " The 
Dominie's Bouwerie," is now the property of 
Trinity Church Corporation in New York 
City. ' 

Pastor and Elder maintained amicable rela- 
tions toward one another throughout the 
Reverend Everardus's incumbency, except on 
one occasion when the minister was hurried, 
in the heat of debate, into the utterance of a 
remark that reflected upon his parishioners 
integrity. He was compelled, in a meeting 
of Consistor\-, to retract his words, whereupon 
Olaf \'an Cortlandt — ^whom a contemporary- 
describes as *' without mistake a noble man " — 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House 173 

frankly forgave the offender, and their friend- 
ship was fully restored. 

The pastor was drowned in Bristol Channel 
in 1647, and the doubly widowed Anneke re- 
sumed the manacrement of the " Bouwerie." 

o 

" Old Burgomaster Van Cortlandt " was one 
of the six chief townsmen who advised and 
conducted a peaceful capitulation to the Eng- 
lish squadron that summoned the settlement 
on "the Island of Manhattoes " to surrender. 
In the political see-saw of the ensuing decade, 
the wise Hollander kept his seat on the safe 
end of the plank. We find him in England, 
lading governmental ships under commission 
of Charles II. ; investi^atino- Lovelace's un- 
settled accounts when the latter was deposed 
by the reinstated Dutch masters, and he was 
one of Andros's council after the international 
episode was settled by the treaty of Westmin- 
ster. In all this, he so cleverly improved 
cloudy as well as shining hours that he had 
by 1674 amassed a fortune of 45,000 guilders 
and much real estate. He was by now the happy 
husband of Annetje Loockermans, who, like 
himself, was born in Holland. He died in 1683. 

" A worthy citizen, and most liberal in his 
charities," says an old chronicle. 



174 Some Colonial Homesteads 

His widow survived him but a twelvemonth. 
Her epitaph, penned by the pastor of the 
venerable couple, asserts that she 

*• . . . after Cortlandt's death no rest possessed. 
And sought no other rest than soon to rest beside him. 
He died. She Hved and died. Both now in Abram rest." 

— tautological testimony which, if trustworthy, 
implies wifelv devotion and a common Chris- 
tian faith. 

Thus runs in brief the opening- chapter in 
the American history of a family than which 
none has borne a more conspicuous and hon- 
orable part in the history of Xew York. 
Compelled by the stringency of space (^or the 
lack of it) to restrict myself to the barest out- 
line of an eventful history, I pass on to the 
threshold of the picturesque Manor- House, 
built in i6Si upon the Croton River then 
" Kightewank Creek." 

The ^lanor of \'an Cortlandt was '* erected " 
in 1OQ7, with especial privileges pertaining 
thereto besides the usual rights of " Court- 
Baron, Court-Leet, etc." Under this title 
were collected lands accumulated during nearly 
thirty years bv Stephanus \'an Cortlandt. 
eldest son of the emierant Olaf. At thirtv- 



Van Corthindt Manor-House 175 

tour ho was the tirst Ainoricvin Ma)or oi Now 
York, and appointed b^irst Judge in Admiralty 
b\- Sir b\iniund Andros. 

So trusted was he by the English o-overnors 
that English-born merchants uttered a formal 
complaint against patronage bestowed upon 
"a Dutchman while the luiglish had no 
chance." 

Ottice was heaped upon office until in num- 
ber and importance thev surpassed those held 
by his doughty brother-in-law. Robert Living- 
ston. The two Manorial Lords married sis- 
ters, the daughters of Philip Petersen Schuyler 
of Albany. The cares of political life, business 
cares and responsibilities, perhaps the chafe 
of the high-strung ambitious spirit witliin a 
not-robust body, made his da\s briefer than 
those of his parents. I le survived the creation 
of his i\Linor less than tour \ears. d\ing in 
I 700. at the comparatively early age of tifty- 
seven. 

Eleven, out of fourteen, children outlived 
him. Wn-planck. Payard. de Lancey, \^an 
Schuyler. — are some o\ the notable names 
joined in marriage with those of his sons and 
daughters. 

His son Philip (^O married Catherine de 



176 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Peyster, " was an eminent merchant in posses- 
sion of good estate," and one of His Majesty's 
Council in 1731. Dying in 1747, his estate 
was divided among his four sons. 

To Pierre ( i ) although the youngest, was 
devised the Manor- House. His wife was his 
second cousin. Joanna Livingston, a grandchild 
of Robert. 

'' With their eldest born, Philip \^an Cort- 
landt, they left New York for Croton River, 
and here all the succeeding children were born. 
For a time all passed peacefully ; Pierre pur- 
suing the avocations of a country gentleman of 
that day, busying himself with his farm and his 
mills." 

The Manor- House, built as a fort station 
by Stephanus Van Cortlandt, contained, origi- 
nally, but eight rooms, and was forty feet 
long by thirty-three wide. It was of Xyack 
red freestone, and the solid masonry of the 
walls w^as pierced with loopholes for de- 
fense against savage visitors. Within a few 
rods was the Ferry-house, constructed of brick 
and wood. As the dampers from savai:re ma- 
rauders lessened, the young members of the 
\'an Cortlandt clan fell into the habit of using 
the fort for a huntino-dod^'e. 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House 177 

The five sons of Philip (i) — Stephen, Abram, 
PhiHp, John, and Pierre, — came and went at 
their pleasure, finding at their country home 
constant occupation. Fish were abundant, and 
deer were still to be found in the forest. 

Abram, Philip, and John died unmarried, 
Stephen and Pierre dividing the estate between 
them. It was but natural that the last-named 
should gladly embrace the opportunity of bring- 
ing up his young family in scenes endeared by 
his early associations. 

The brief, blessed calm was terminated by 
the outbreak of the Revolution. 

" In 1774," — says the careful paper prepared 
by the widow of the late Pierre Van Cortlandt, 
and to which I am indebted for the framework 
of this article, — " Governor Tryon came to 
Croton, ostensibly on a visit of courtesy, bring- 
ing with him his wife, a daughter of the Hon. 
John Watts [a kinsman of the Van Cort- 
landts]. . . . The next morning Governor 
Tryon proposed a walk. They all proceeded 
to one of the highest points on the estate, and, 
pausing, Tryon announced to the listening 
Van Cortlandt the orreat favors that would be 
granted to him if he would espouse the royal 
cause, and give his adherence to king and par- 



1/8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

liament. Large grants of land would be added 
to his estates, and Tryon hinted that a title 
might be bestowed. Van Cortlandt answered 
that ' he was chosen representative [to the 
Colonial Assembly] by unanimous approba- 
tion of a people who placed confidence in his 
integrity, to use all his ability for the benefit and 
the good of his country as a true patriot, which 
line of conduct he was determined to pursue.' 
(Pierre's nephew, Philip [Stephen's son], 
entered the Royal army, served throughout 
the war, and died in England in 1814. The 
present Lord Elphinstone is his great-grand- 
son.) " 

The discomfited Tr^^on returned to New 
York, and Van Cortlandt was elected to the 
Second Provincial Congress in 1775. He was 
also a delegate to the Third and Fourth, and 
President of the Council of Safety. 

Franklin, Rochambeau, LaFayette, Steu- 
ben, de Lauzun — and a greater than they — 
Washington — were honored quests within the 

<z> 

stout walls of the Manor-House durine the 
war. " The new bridge of the Croton, about 
nine miles from Peekskills," mentioned by the 
Commander-in-Chief in his diary of July 2, 
1 78 1, superseded the ferry, and the brick-and- 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House 179 

timber Ferry-house served as temporary bar- 
racks for the soldiers on their passage up and 
down the river. 

Continued residence in the turbulent heart 
of military operations was impossible. Mrs. 
Van Cortlandt and the children finally sought 
an asylum upon one of the Livingston farms 
at Rhinebeck. The Manor-House was left in 
charge of faithful slaves, and was visited by 
the family by stealth and at long intervals. 

Pierre Van Cortlandt was acting-marshal 
of the famous Equestrian Provincial Congress, 
which halted in mid-march when overtaken by 
despatches from Washington calling upon 
them for appropriations, etc. Wheeling their 
horses into a hollow square, they would pass 
laws and legislate bills and provisions as re- 
quired, then, at the bugle-call, form into line 
and proceed on their way. 

The brave father writes to his son Philip — 
who had thrown himself with the enthusiasm 
of early and vigorous manhood into the Patriot 
cause, and was now in the camp — of his pray- 
erful hope " that the Lord will be with you all, 
and that you may quit yourselves like men in 
your country's cause." 

Pierre Van Cortlandt served as Lieutenant- 



i8o Some Colonial Homesteads 

Governor from 1777 to 1795, and was Presi- 
dent of the Convention that framed the new 
Constitution. 

The echoes of the war had muttered them- 
selves into silence, when he recalled his house- 
hold to the Manor- House and resumed the 
peaceful occupations he loved. The wife of 
his youth was spared to him until 1808. She 
was eighty-seven years of age. They had lived 
together for over sixty years. 

" A model wife," says her biographer ; " A 
model mother and a model Christian. She 
made the Manor House an earthly Paradise." 

Her husband outlived her six years, dying 
in 1 8 14, at the ripe age of ninety-four. 

" The simplicity of his life was that of an 
ancient Patriarch. He descended to the grave 
full of years, covered with honor and grateful 
for his country's happiness. He retained his 
recollection to the last, calling upon his Saviour 
to take him to Himself." 

The hero-son Philip (2) succeeded to the 
estate. He had fulfilled in letter and in spirit 
his pious father's hope, having won renown 
and rank by his gallantry, and universal re- 
spect by his talents and character. In 1783 
he received the rank of Brigadier-General for 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House i8i 

his conduct at Yorktown. For sixteen years 
he represented his district in Congress. In 
1824 he accompanied his old comrade and 
dear friend, LaFayette, in his tour through 
the country they had helped to save. He died 
in 1 83 1, in his eighty-second year. 

Pierre (2) Van Cortlandt (Philip's brother 
and successor) was born in 1762. He was a 
student of Rutgers College in New Brunswick 
at the outbreak of the war, and one of the 
party of lads who joined the citizens in repel- 
ling an attack made by the British upon the 
town. He studied law under Alexander Ham- 
ilton, a kinsman by marriage, Mrs. Hamilton 
being a daughter of General Philip Schuyler. 
In 1801 Mr. Van Cortlandt married " Caty," 
the eldest child of Governor George Clinton, 
and after her death in 181 1, Anne, daughter 
of John Stevenson, of Albany. 

His only child, Pierre (3) entered upon his 
inheritance in 1848. Superb in physique, and 
courtly in bearing, he is remembered with af- 
fectionate esteem by the community in which 
he spent forty-eight years and " in which he 
had not one enemy." He passed away peace- 
fully July II, 1884. 

His widow, the daughter of T. Romeyn 



i82 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Beck, M.D., of Albany, the eminent scholar 
and writer on medical jurisprudence, lived for 
ten years longer in the beautiful old home- 
stead with her son and her daughter, Miss 
Anne Stevenson Van Cortlandt. 

Endowed by nature with unusual beauty of 
person and intelligence, Mrs. Van Cortlandt 
added to these gifts scholarly attainments, 
vivacity and grace of manner that made her the 
pride and joy of those who loved her, and the 
chief attraction of her home to the hosts of 
friends who souorht her there. The charm of her 
conversation and society was irresistible. She 
gave of her Intellectual, as of her heart, treas- 
ures royally. Her fund of anecdote was ex- 
haustless, her descriptions were graphic, and the 
sunny humor that withstood griefs under which 
a weaker spirit would have sunk Into pessimistic 
despondency never deserted her. Her contri- 
butions to historical periodicals were always 
trustworthy and full of Interest, her letters 
were models of easy and sparkling composi- 
tion, the only substitute which absent friends 
were willing to accept for her radiant and 
gracious presence. 

Out of the fulness of a lovlnof heart I offer 
this humble tribute to one of the noblest of 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House 183 

the Order of Colonial Dames, whom the places 
she glorified now know no more. It is a bit 
of fadeless rosemary, and it is laid upon a 
shrine. 

The son. Captain James Stevenson Van 
Cortlandt, followed the example of his ances- 
tors in answering promptly to his country's 
call in her day of need. He entered the army at 
eighteen, and served with distinction through- 
out the civil war, first as Aid-de-Camp to Gen- 
eral Corcoran ; then with the New York 155th, 
and, upon promotion, in the New York 22nd 
Cavalry, being with that regiment during 
Sheridan's brilliant campaigns. 

A married daughter, the wife of Rev. John 
Rutherford Matthews, Chaplain in the U. S. 
Navy, occupies the quaint old Ferry-house, 
now converted into a comfortable residence. 

The Manor-House is long and low, and 
draped with historic romance, legend, and 
poetry, as with the vines that cling to the deep 
veranda. 

Above the main entrance, with its Knicker- 
bocker half-door and brass knocker, are the 
horns of an immense moose. In the outer 
wall to the left is cut the date of erection, 
''A.D. j68i." In the hall hang the portraits 



1 84 Some Colonial Homesteads 

of John and Pierre, sons of Philip (i) Van 
Cortlandt, taken in boyhood. Pierre is ac- 
companied by his dog; John has his hand on 
the head of a fawn tamed by himself. The 
antlers of the favorite, grown to full deerhood, 
and — let us hope — dying a natural death in the 
fulness of years, — are over the opposite door. 

One of the T-shaped loopholes, left uncov- 
ered as a curious memento of the warlike in- 
fancy of the homestead, gapes in the wall of 
the dining-room. Beneath it, and in striking 
congruity with the silent telltale, is the por- 
trait of Joseph Brant, the college-bred Indian, 
who " with all his native ferocity, was a polished 
gentleman." 

Aaron Burr's daughter, Theodosia, who 
should have been a competent critic in matters 
of deportment and etiquette, bears testimony 
to the high breeding of the Mohawk chieftain 
in a letter written to her father when she was 
a precocious and accomplished girl of fourteen. 
Burr, who was in Philadelphia, had given Brant 
a letter of introduction to Theodosia in New 
York, and the young lady proceeded to arrange 
a dinner-party for the distinguished stranger. 
Among her guests were Bishop Moore and 
Dr. Bard, an eminent physician who was after- 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House i8; 

ward President of the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons in \e\v York. 

The hostess was, she says, sadly puzzled in 
making up a suitable bill of fare. 

" I had a mind to lay the hospital under con- 
tribution for a human head to be served up 
like a boar's head in ancient hall historic. 
After all, he (^ Brant) was a most Christian 
and civilized guest in his manners." 

In 1779, Colonel Philip Wan Cortlandt led 
his men in a skirmish against Brant and his 
Indians, and while standing under a tree and 
marshalling his men, was observed by the 
" polished " savage. He promptly ordered a 
marksman to '* pick oti " the white officer. The 
dancing foliage about Colonel \^m Cortlandt's 
head misled the ritieman, and the ball missed 
the mark by three inches. 

" Had I tired, m^'self," said Brant in a 
friendly talk with General \'an Cortlandt in 
after years, " I should not have the pleasure 
of meeting you to-da\'. And " — with a bow 
and a smile — " I am extremely happy that I 
did not." 

The portrait, painted at the request of the 
late Mrs. \^an Cortlandt's grandfather, James 
Caldwell, of Albany, is fine. The expression 



iSS Some Colonial Homesteads 

is complacent, even benevolent, although the 
physiognomy is all Indian. There is not a 
gleam of native ferocity in the sleek visage, 
not a shadow of remorse for wanton carnage 
in the smiling eyes. A large stone corn-mortar 
used by the Indians, is built, for better preser- 
vation, into the wall of the lawn. 

Mrs. \'an Cortlandt once related to me this 
anecdote, apropos of Indian neighbors: 

** One evening, as the Lieutenant-Governor and his 
wife were seated by their nreside, several Indians came 
in. They were made welcome, and a pitcher of cider 
was brought to them. After all had drunk, the Chief 
returned his bowl to Mrs. Van Cortlandt, who threw the 
few drops that remained into the fire. The Chief, with 
flashing eyes and clenched fists advanced to strike her. 
Governor Van Cortlandt sternly interposed, demanding 
the cause of such violence. Explanations ensued, and 
it appeared that even the apparent attempt to quench 
the fire on the hearth was an insult, according to Indian 
usage. Amity was restored by an apology." 

Better-mannered and more welcome quests 
sat about the superb old dining-table, which is 
the richer in color and more valuable for each 
of the 250 years that have passed since it was 
made over the sea. Washington and his aids, 
and other world-renowned men. ate from the 
o-enerous board. 




LOOPHOLE AND BRANT'S PORTRAIT IN DININQ-ROOM. 



Win Cortlandt Manor-1 louse loi 

In the library is an antique chair taken from 
a captured Spanish privateer. The tireplace is 
surrounded by tiles, each beariui;- the arms 
of some branch, direct or collateral, of the \"an 
Cortlandt family, painted by Mrs. Matthews, 
who is an accomplished and diligent genealo- 
gist and antiquarian. The \'an Cortlandt crest 
is the central ornament. rwent}--four tiles 
are to the rig-ht and left of it. 

It is almost miraculous that such wealth of 
silver, glass, and china surxived the earh" colo- 
nial wars, and the frequent removals these 
rendered necessarv, as one sees upon the buf- 
fets and in the closets of the Manor- House. 
To the relicdover, historian, and romancist, 
every step is a surpriseful delig-ht. 

Hetore a prohle-portrait. in a small chamoer 
on the tirst tioor. we pause in silent reverence. 
It shows a woman past the prime of life, but 
still beautiful. Her features are stron^;-. vet 
refined, the eyes are clear and solemn. Within 
the locked door of this apartment, Joanna 
Livingston, wife of Lieutenant-Governor Pierre 
Wan Cortlandt. knelt and prayed and fasted 
from morning until night, on the day of the 
battle of White Plains. To the devout imagi- 
nation, there is a brooding' hush in the atmos- 



192 Some Colonial Homesteads 

phere of the secluded room consecrated for all 
time by agonized supplication for husband, son, 
and country. 

The wedding gown of Joanna Livingston 
is preserved here, and we regard with almost 
equal interest a bit of pink silk kept in Mrs. 
Matthews's reliquary. I give the story as 
nearly as possible in Mrs. Van Cortlandt's 
words : 

" Gilbert* Van Cortlandt wrote to his father : ' Nancy 
has got a bright pink silk — beautiful ! She will ai)pear 
as well as the best of them.' 

" ' Nancy ' was the daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt 
and Joanna Livingston. She married Philip Schuyler 
Van Rensselaer, long Mayor of Albany, and a brother of 
the Patroon. ' Nancy,' on one occasion when going to 
dine with the Patroon, wore this dress, and just as she 
was setting out, a party of Methodist preachers drove to 
the door. As usual, they expected entertainment and 
lodging. Wliile she was receiving them, one of the party 
turned to her and said : ' Madame ! do you expect to go 
to Heaven in that gown ? ' She was shocked at his 
rudeness, and never wore the dress again, on account of 
the unpleasant association connected with it." 

Another, and a sadder family story is of the 
untimely death of Catherine, only daughter of 
Philip (i) Van Cortlandt and his wife Cath- 

* Son of Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt. 




193 



FIREPLACE IN LIBRARY. 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House 195 

erine de Pcystcr. Havinjj^ oonc with her 
nurse to the then fashionable promenade, the 
Hattery, on June 4, 1738, to witness the cele- 
bration of the Kino's birthday, the little ij^irl 
was killed by the burstino^ of a cannon used in 
firing" salutes. She was but twelve years of 
age. Her body was laid in a vault in Trinity 
Church, New York. Several years later the 
tomb was opened, and the devoted nurse who 
had insisted upon being present, saw the pretty 
child lying asleep as in life. The woman stooped 
to kiss her. At the touch of her lips, the body 
crumbled to dust. There was left, where the 
face had been, but a moment before, only the 
small cap with its crimped border, and the 
'* minnikin " pins that had fastened it to the 
hair. 

In the "ghost-room" of the Manor-House 
are the portraits of the first and second wives 
of General Pierre (2) Van Cortlandt. The 
dark, clearly cut face in profile opposite the 
door is that of "Caty" Clinton. Wilfulness 
speaks in every lineament, but the piquante 
face is wistful, rather than petulant. She 
married, clandestinely. Captain John Taylor, 
a British officer, on the eve of his departure 
for England. It may have been three months 



19^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

thereafter when her father looked up from a 
newspaper to observe : 

*' I see that Captain Taylor died at Fal- 
mourh. soon after reaching port." 

His daughter interrupted him by falling in 
a faint at his feet. While looking at her pict- 
ured presentment we can believe that she car- 
ried the traces of the early love affair and the 
shock of the tragedy that ended it. throughout 
the few years of her married life with the 
gallant gentleman who had this portrait of her 
finished after her death. His second wife, it 
is said, sat for the figure. He always spoke 
of Caty as "bright and beautiful." The fam- 
ily annals describe her as ** energetic and viva- 
cious." Of Anne Stevenson, the mother of 
his onl\- child (poor Cary had none I ) he said, 
*' She was an angel." And yet we turn from 
her lovely, high-bred face for another and 
longer look at the child-widow, whose soldier- 
love never came back to give her courage to 
confess the ill-starred marriage to her father. 

The ghost-lore of the ancient homestead is 
rich and authentic. This is one of the stories 
told me while I loitered in the chamber fur- 
nished with belongings one and two centuries 
old. 




THE GHOST-ROOM. 



Van Cortlandt Manor-House 199 

The narrator was the noble mistress of the 
Manor-House : 

" A young lady visiting us in September, 1863, was 
asked if she minded sleeping in the Ghost-Room, as it 
was a long while since any mysterious sounds had been 
heard there. She was told that if she was nervous a ser- 
vant would occupy the adjoining apartment. She 
laughed at the query, and ' had no belief in or fear of ap- 
paritions.' In the morning she came to the breakfast- 
table, pale and ill-at-ease. After breakfast, she confessed 
to having awakened, suddenly, feeling that some one was 
in the room near her bed. Presently, it took the definite 
shape of a woman, dressed in a brown gown, with a white 
handkerchief crossed over her breast. A large apron, a 
bunch of keys at her side, a mob cap and long ear-rings 
completed the figure. It remained for what seemed a 
long time, and twitched the bed-clothes off, disappear- 
ing as the whistle of the two o'clock train was heard. 

" As soon as we heard this story, my daughter and I 
exclaimed, * That is the exact description of R — ! ' an old 
housekeeper who lived at General Van Cortlandt's house 
at Peekskill and had died some time before. Every de- 
tail was exact, although the guest had never seen or 
heard of her. 

" The sound of a carriage driven up the gravelled 
drive to the front-door, has been heard by every mem- 
ber of the family. An old servant, a former slave and 
most excellent creature, used to declare that she had 
seen, in days past, the coach and pair with liveried ser- 
vants and old Lady Van Cortlandt alighting at the door. 
I never did, but I have heard it many times ; the tramp- 



200 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ling hoofs, the roll and grating of the wheels, the sudden 
check at the foot of the steps, and, looking out, saw 
nothing." 

A plate let Into a pillar of the veranda re- 
cords that Georore Whitefield stood here while 
he preached to an immense audience upon the 
lawn. Bishop Asbury also preached from the 
improvised pulpit. 

Sorrows have multiplied and thickened above 
the venerable homestead in later years, but 
the cordial hospitality characteristic of the 
Van Cortlandts in every generation is still ex- 
tended to stranoer and to friend. Love and 
good-will sit with clasped hands before the 
ancient hearthstone ; the spirit of charity, 
generous and graceful, abides within the walls 
like a visible benediction upon inmates and 
guests. 







S^"^ 



IX 



OAK HILL, UPON THE LIVINGSTON MANOR 



FAIR Alida (van) Schuyler, daughter of 
PhiHp Petersen Schuyler of Albany, mar- 
ried, first, Rev. Nicholas van Rensselaer, and, 
as his widow, espoused, in 1683, Robert Living- 
ston, one of the most 
remarkable men of his 

Li is family Sprang from a ^^^WMI^^^^ 
Hungarian root. '' Liven- ^^iX^^^CwM 
gus " is among the names 
of the knights who fol- 
lowed William of Nor- 
mandy across the Channel. Livingston coat-of-arms. 

AT • • > /^ r MOTTO, SI JEPUIS. " 

Livmgston, George, 01 

Linlithgow, lost title and estate through his 

devoted partisanship of the losing side in 

1645. 




202 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Robert, his grandson, was the son of John 
Livingston, a Scottish clergyman resident in 
Linlithgow until his removal to Holland after 
the sequestration of the family estates. Cal- 
lender House, in the neighborhood of this 
town, was one of the residences of the family. 
The name occurs frequently upon the grave- 
stones in the burial-ground of the parish church. 

John — otherwise " Messer John," otherwise, 
*' Dominie " Livinorston — visited America to 
'' prospect " for the foundation of a family 
estate in the New World, a scheme foiled by 
his death soon after his return to Scotland, 
about the year 1672. Robert sailed for this 
country In 1674, and settled In the Dutch Col- 
ony of Beverwyck (Albany). 

In 1675, he was Town Clerk and Secretary 
of Indian affairs. In 1680, he presented to 
" his Excellency, Sir Edmund Andross knt., 
Governor Gen'l. under his Royall Highness of 
New Yorke and Dependences In America," 
an " humble petlcou " for the grant of a " Cer- 
tain tract of Land Lying upon Rolef Jansen's 
kill or Creeke, upon the East side of Hudson's 
River near Cats kill belonging to the Indian 
Proprietors not purchased by anybody hitherto 
and your humble Petloner being Informed 



Oak Hill 203 

that the owners are willing to dispose of the 
same with the runn of Water or Creeke," etc., 
etc., 

The '* peticou " is superscribed : 

*' Granted to be Purchased according to 
Law And upon A Survey thereof Duly re- 
turned a Pattent to be granted him for a 
Bowery or farme there as desired. New Yorke 
the 1 2th of NovembV 1680, 

E. Androssy 

This modest demand, promptly granted, 
was the tip of the camel's nose thrust into the 
wiorwam window of the Mohican Indians own- 

o 

ing " 3 Flatts with some small Flatts," to- 
gether with sundry " Woodland, Kills, Creeks," 
and the like, extendingf " Northwards, South- 
wards and further Eastward, keeping the same 
breadth as on the River bank." The land 
was paid for in guilders, '' Blankets and Child's 
Blankets," shirts, cloth, ten kettles, powder, 
guns, twenty little looking-glasses, fish-hooks, 
awls and nails, tobacco, knives, strong beer. 
" Four Stroud coats, two duffel coats and four 
tin kettles," rum and pipes, ten pairs of large 
s^tockings and ten pairs of small, not to men- 
tion adzes, paint, bottles, and twenty little 
scissors. 



204 Some Colonial Homesteads 

The deed was signed July 12, 1683, in Al- 
bany, by Robert Livingston, a Dutch inter- 
preter, two Dutch witnesses and — each by his 
mark — four Indians. 

Tamaranachqua?, an Indian woman, stipu- 
lated, before signing, for the right to plant 
and sow for four years on a certain " little 
hook of Land." 

This tirst grant was for 2000 acres of land 
on Hudson's River. 

Letters patent for another tract of 600 
acres were issued to Robert Livingston, Aug. 
27. 1685. In 1686, the tracts were erected 
into a Lordship of Manor, giving a " Court- 
leet, Court-Baron, and other dignities and 
privileges." 

The Attorne\-General for the Crown in- 
dorsed the " pattent " to the effect that it had 
been " duly perused and found to contain 
nothing prejudiciall to His Majestye's interest." 
There was a good deal to be perused. Be- 
sides the usual legal verbiage and iteration, 
there is mention of "black Oake " and "white 
Oake Trees marked L," of " Timberwoods, 
Underwoods, Swamps, Moors, Marshes, Mead- 
ows, Rivoletts, Hawking. Hunting, fishing, 
fowling" (with never a comma between, in the 




205 ROBERT LIVINGSTON, FIRST LORD OF LIVINGSTON MANOR. 



Oak Hill 207 

orioinal) of a " Marsh lycini;- ncarc unto the 
said kills of the saitl 11 capes of Stones upon 
which the Inchans throw upcMi another as they 
Passe by from an Ancient Custom aniono- 
theni," of " Mines Mineralls (Silver and Ciokl 
Mines only excepted) " and so on thrcnio'h 
about three thousand " wcM'ds, words, words ! " 
windino- up with statement o{ the oblioation 
on the part of the said Robert LivinostcMi, 
*'his Heires and assions for ever," to pay a 
yearly rent or tax of " Ei^ht and twcMity 
Shillinos Currant mony of this Country," to 
the Crown. 

Thus far the world and his adopted land 
had dealt generously by the son of the Scotch 
Dominie. 

The first discord in the chant of praise to 
him who had done so well for himself comes 
to us in a note from the Earl of Hellomont, 
resident GoverncM* of the ColcMiy, of whom we 
shall hear more in other chapters — addressed 
to the London Hoard of Trade. 

*' Did Ja}i X I JO I. 

" Mr Livingston has on his great grant of 
16 miles long and 24 broad, but 4 or 5 cot- 
tages as I am told, men that live in vassalage 
under him and are too poor to be farmers not 



2o8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

having- wherewithal! to buy cattle to stock a 
farm." 

The sequitur to this note was the removal 
b\" Lord Bellomont of Robert Livingston from 
the otiice of collector of excise in Albany, and 
the statement, also accredited to the Earl- 
Governor, that the collector deserved, on 
accoimt of "great frauds" practised in and out 
of ottice, to be suspended from His Majesty's 
Council. Lieutenant-Governor Xanfran took 
up the accusation upon Lord Bellomont's 
death in 1701. In his indictment he declares 
that the storv of the ex-collector's connection 
with " Capt. Kidd the p\rate " had never been 
disproved ; that Livingston was ouiltv of fraud- 
ulent and contumelious conduct, and desertion 
of His Majestye's service and province. For 
these causes, singly and combined, he was 
suspended " from being one of his jNIaj'ty's 
Council of this province until his INIaj'ty's 
pleasure be further known therein." 

The next blow was a demand from the 
Assembly that he be deprived of all his offices, 
five in number, and his estate be confiscate. 
In 1705. arrived Queen Anne's warrant rein- 
stating him in every office. The Council, 
thereupon, declared his position of Secretary 




209 GERTRUDE SCHUYLER (SECOND WIFE OF ROBERT LIVINGSTON). 



Oak Hill 211 

of Indian affairs a sinecure, and refused to pay 
his salary. Rob't Livingston's petition to 
Lord Lovelace, *' Governor-in-Chief of the 
Province in New Yorke East and West Jer- 
says &c.," for payment of moneys due him for 
services rendered as Indian Agent, contains 
the mention of the prudent neutrality of his 
wife's brother when Livingston's petition for 
the "arrears of his said salary " was laid before 
the Council. He thus quotes the entry on 
the Council-Book, Sept, 15, 1708. 

'' It is ye opinion of his Excellency & all ye 
Council (Except Coll. Schuyler who gave no 
opinion therein) that ye Petition be disal- 
lowed," etc., etc. 

The indefatigable Lord of the "Mannor" 
next offered himself as representative to the 
Albany Assembly and was elected in i 709, — a 
position he held for five years. In that time, 
he secured the repeal of every act injurious to 
himself, and triumphed completely over de- 
tractors and persecutors. 

In 1 710, the parent government transported 
a colony of three thousand Palatines (Hes- 
sians) to a tract of land lying on Hudson 
River. The Oueen, no lono-er needing them 
as mercenary troops, lent willing ear to the 



212 Some Colonial Homesteads 

proposition that they should be settled near 
the Canadian frontier, as a passive safeguard 
against French and Indians, and to make '* Tur- 
pentine, Rozin, Tarr and Pitch " for commerce 
and the British navy. It is an interesting and 
somewhat diverting story, that of this trouble- 
some colony, many of whose names are per- 
petuated in the denizens of East and West 
Camps and Germantown. Xew York. Robert 
Livingston sold to Governor Hunter as Repre- 
sentative of the Crown, for four hundred 
pounds sterling, enough land to furnish a plot 
of ground and a cabin-site to each immigrant 
familv. and obtained the contract to feed them 
at sixpence a head, /tr ^//r;;/. Liberal rights 
of way were reserved in the ponderous deed 
recordino- the transfer, also, huntino- and hsh- 
ing privileges, and libertv of digging, taking, 
and carrying away stones from the river beach. 
Stipulation was further made that no pines 
should be felled within six English miles of 
the Livingston saw-mills. 

Xot withstanding the minute provisions of 
the contract made with Livingston for vict- 
ualling the Palatines, he so far managed to get 
the best of the bargain that Lord Clarendon 
wrote to Lord Darmouth, in irii. his convic- 



Oak Hill 213 

tion that " Livinoston and S(Mnc others will 
get estates. The Palatines will not be the 
richer." 

It would he tedious, and it is needless to 
00 into the particulars of the further connec- 
tion of Robert Livingston with the Hessian 
settlement. If he made money out of the 
Crown and the Palatines, they were a fret- 
ting thorn in his side until the da\' c^f his 
death. 

In I 72 I, he moved, as "Sole Pro[)rietor of 
the Manor (^f Livingston," for the establish- 
ment and building oi a church upon his 
estate, and for calling " s(Mue able and pious 
Dutch Reformed Protestant Minister from 
Holland " to officiate therein. The chapel 
now standing at Staatje (Little \'illage) about 
a mile and a half below the site oi ihc Manor- 
House, is built over the vault oi the ancient 
church. The chapel — a ncnv structure — took 
the place of the " Livingston Reformed Church 
of Linlithgow," erected in 1 780. Generations 
of dead Livingstons rest within the vault, 
which was bricked over for all time, within a 
few years, by Mr. Herman Livingston of Oak 
Hill. 

The original Manor- House stood at the 



2 14 Some Colonial Homesteads 

mouth of what was at the time of the grant 
known as " Roelef Jansen's Kill," and after- 
wards received the name of Livingston Creek. 
It was low-ceiled and thick-walled, a colonial 
farm-house with outbuildings tor negro slaves 
and other laborers. An odd and yet authentic 
tradition is that Robert Livingston kept his 
wealth of ready money on the door in one 
corner of his bedroom. There was no lock 
on the door, through which, when open, chil- 
dren, servants, and visitors could see the piles 
of Spanish coins heaped up in apparent care- 
lessness. The story goes so far as to give 
$30,000 as the amount of the deposits on one 
occasion in this primitive bank, and to add 
the astounding information that the pro- 
prietor, who was at once Board of Direction, 
President and Cashier, never lost doubloon or 
dollar by the dishonesty of those who could 
easily have made drafts upon his "pile." 

Robert Livingston died in 1722. In listen- 
incr to the storv of his life, the wonder arises 
that he yielded finally to any foe, even the 
King of Terrors. His was a crafty, far- 
reaching intellect ; in will-power he was sub- 
lime. He grasped audaciously, and held 
what he gained with a grip which councillors 



Oak Hill 215 

and nobles could not relax. When deprived 
at home of offices and titles, he went abroad 
in one of his own vessels, to sue for justice 
at the foot of the throne, and brought home 
in his pocket the papers reinstating- him in 
position and fortune. Upon the return voy- 
age he was in imminent danger of shipwreck. 
In recognition of his signal 
deliverance, he set aside <^^ ^^/q 

the family crest, — a demi- 
sauvage, with the motto, 
*' S/ jc //(is,'' — and assumed 
a device of his own, — a ship 
in distress, with the legend ^^^ 
" S/>cro mclioray To hardi- 
hood, enterprise, and keen 
intellio-ence, he must have Robert livinqston's 

. . ^ . CREST. 

jomed a magnetic per- 
sonality of which history, written and oral, 
gives no hint except by recording his mag- 
nificent successes. Buccaneers. Indian savaees, 
phlegmatic Dutchmen, peers and princes, seem 
to have been powerless to resist his influence 
when confronted by him, however they might 
plot for his ruin in his absence. 

Yet it is not a comely, or in any sense an 
attractive, visas^e that oazes at us from the 




2i6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Oak Hill portrait of the tirst Lord of the 
]Manor. In full-bottomed wig and official 
scarlet robes, he looks the astute sardonic 
rugged-featured Scotchman, born to drive and 
domineer when he could, and to outwit where 
force was futile. 

At the death of this extraordinar}- man, his 
will bestowed the lower section of the Manor 
(Clermont) upon his son, Robert, the Manor 
proper descending to the oldest son, Philip. 

Philip Livingston's will (dated July 15, 1748) 
left the Manor to his son Robert, known in 
the family as Robert Livingston, Jun'r. Rob- 
ert's estate, by a will bearing date of May 51, 
1 784, was, at his death, divided among his 
sons, Walter, Robert C, John, and Henr}-. 

Robert Livingston. Jr., inherited with the 
Manor and name his grandfather's pluck and 
persecutions. The immense estate, great now 
in value as in extent, was the subject of con- 
troversy between Massachusetts and New 
York. The correspondence carried on by 
lawyers and governors is voluminous and 
entertaining. 

In 1795, about 260 descendants of the emi- 
grant Palatines — " Inhabitants of the Town of 
Livingston, in the Countv of Columbia," de- 




PHILIP LIVINGSTON CSECOND LORD OF THE MANOR). 



Oak Hill 219 

nianded from the New York Leoislature an 
investioation into the title by which the Liv- 
ingstons held their fanicnis Manor. Mnch of 
the petition is taken u|) with the recapitulation 
of the terms and limitations of the orioinal 
grants which, it alleged, were for but 2600 
acres, whereas the descendants of the said 
Robert Livingston claim imder these letters- 
patent, I ys,ooo acres. 

About one third of the petitioners signed the 
instrument with their marks, instead of writing 
their names. At the foot of the document is 
the briefly significant note : 

". . . On the TQ ALirch, 1795, the 
committee of the Assembly reported adversely 
on the above petition, and the House con- 
curred in the report on the 23d of the same 
month." 

Judge Sutherland prefaces his able '' De- 
duction of Title to the ALanor of Livingston," 
by a note to the, then, proprietor (in 1850) 
Mr. Herman Livingston, in which he oives the 
number of acres originally contained in the 
estate as 160,000. "All of which," he adds, 
** have been sold and conveyed in fee simple, 
but about ^^^,000 acres." 

This "deduction" was consequent upon a 



220 Some Colonial Homesteads 

celebrated Manorial suit contesting- the valid- 
ity of the Livingston title, in which Judge 
Sutherland was counsel for the proprietors. 
A MS. note upon the fly-leaf of the pamphlet 
before me informs the reader that " John 
\'an Buren's fee from the Anti-Renters was 
$2500, and $20 per day from the state during 
the trial." 




X 



OAK HILL ON THE LIVINGSTON MANOR 

( Co mi tide J. ) 

THE original Manor- House, built by the 
first Robert Livingston, was demolished 
over one hundred years ago. 

The site is now occupied by the dwelling of 
Mr. Alexander Crafts, a grandson of Robert 
Tong Livingston. Not one stone of the old 
house is left upon another, but now and then 
the plough brings up a corroded coin, as if to 
mark the location of the primeval Banking- 
house established .by the canny Scot. His 
wealth, portioned among his descendants, was 
held and increased by them to an extent un- 
usual in American families. vStately home- 
steads arose upon desirable points of the vast 
plantation, until nearly every commanding 
eminence for a dozen miles up and down the 
river was owned by one of the blood or name. 



222 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Clermont, the home of Chancellor Robert 
Livuioston at Tivoli, was, and is one of the 
finest and most interesting- of these. It stands 
upon the lower division ot the estate, and is 
a noble edilice, built in the form of an H. and 
gray with honorable old age. Paintings, fur- 
niture, and other heirlooms are preserved with 
pious care. 

?^Ir. Clermont Livingston, the present pro- 
prietor, is a grandson of Chancellor Li\ing- 
ston. The adjoining estate is owned b)- Mr. 
John Henr\- Livingston, a grandson of Her- 
man Livingston {\) o\ Oixk Hill. 

The last-named mansion — C^ak Hill — was 
built by John Livingston in i jqS, as the im- 
mediate successor of the heavy-raftered farm- 
stead dignified by Royal Charter into a 
Baronial Hall. The modern ^Llnor-f iouse 
is about one and a half miles from the aban- 
doned site. 

The omnipotence of affluence, conjoined 
with education and continued through four 
generations, wrought out in John Livingston 
a finer type of manhood than his well-born 
ancestor developed in the New World. 

A descendant thus describes the master of 
Oak Hill in his old a^e : 




223 



JOHN LIVINGSTON. 

(THE LAST LORD OF THE MANOR. 



Oak Hill 225 

" His style of dress was that worn by all courtly gentle- 
men of the olden time, — a black dress-coat, witli knee- 
breeches fastened over his black silk stockings with 
silver buckles ; similar buckles of a larger size were in 
his shoes. He had a high forehead, beautiful blue eyes, 
a straight nose, and a very determined mouth. His hair 
was carefully dressed every morning, the long queue was 
rewound, the wliole head plentifully besprinkled with 
powder, and tlie small curls, that had remained in papers 
during breakfast-time, adjusted on each side of his neck." 

He was thought by many to bear a strono- 
resemblance to General Washington ; but, as 
a beautiful miniature on ivory shows, was a 
much handsomer man, his features being cast 
in a nobler mould, and chiselled into refine- 
ment of beauty by a life that varied widely 
from the severe discipline which was the first 
President's from his childhood. 

As was to be expected, the last of his line 
to hold the title of '' laird " in this republic was a 
man of mark by reason of position and personal 
accomplishments. Opulence and ease had not 
enfeebled the bound of the Linlithgow blood, 
and the passion for adding field to field that 
had made Livingston Manor, lived in old 
Robert's great-grandchildren. John Living- 
ston and his brother bought immense tracts 
of land in New York, until they called forth a 



220 Some Colonial Homesteads 

legislative remonstrance. 1: was hardly conso- 
nant with the genius of democracy, it was rep- 
resented, that one family should own the 
entire State. The brothers then cast covetous 
eves upon Western lands, miles of which they 
purchased, including the territory upon which 
the town of New Connecticut. Ohio, was built. 
They had saw-mills, flour-mills, and. at Ancram. 
New York, valuable iron works. 

The taste tor iron — in the ore — was common 
to several branches, direct and collateral, of the 
race. Sarah, daughter of Philip Livingston, 
married Alexander, titular Earl of Stirling. 
whose mines in the mountains of New Iorso\ 
are mentioned in our chapter upon the Schuy- 
ler Homestead. Her portrait at Oak Hill is 
that of a stately dame in whose haughty face 
one traces a decided resemblance to her grand- 
father. Robert, of the ponderous peruke and 
scarlet robes. 

The story of Oak Hill life under the last 
laird reads like an l\nglish holiday romance. 
rather than the earlv annals of a war-beaten 
voung nation. lohn Livingston delighted, at 
seventv-tive. to tell his grandchildren tales of 
the social gaveties of that epoch, of the famlly 
dinner-parties : the evening gatherings in the 



Oak Hill 227 

siininuM-, wluMi, from one and another of the 
hantlsome resitlenec^s tlotlln^' the risin^- oromul 
haek ol iherixcr. came eh.iriol aiul eaxalcade, 
with scorers o( kinspeople to laiii^h, talk and 
dance awa)' the hours ; o( sleiohinj^-parties lo 
Clermont and Oak llill, when revelry ran yet 
hii^her. On one memorable occasion, cvrvy 
sleiL;h. m turninj^ trom tlu^Oak 1 1 ill door, upset 
in a partieularK' incommodious snowdrift at the 
corner ol the house. 

"Water picnics" (uxau'red S(^\'eral times 
duriui^' the sununcM". VUc Idviui^stons, from 
RohcM't down. W(M'(^ ship-owners. idiey c^stah- 
lished a line o{ "fast packc^ts " for coast and 
ocean voyages, and tluMr sloops plied reo'ularh' 
to and Irom New \ Ork. Merry parties o( 
cousins took passage in the Junc^ weather on 
the ladcMi sloc^ps and ran down to the city and 
back, for the fun of it. 

" Our two voyai^x^s " — /. r., uj) and down to 
New York — " (Hxnipic\l ninc^ days and sevcMi 
hours," says a participant in onc^ o'i these 
" runs," — -" and wc^ were rcHXMxed at Oak Hill 
with as hearty a welcome as if we had per- 
formed the journe\' around tlu^ world." 

The Manor servants w(M"e all nc^^ro slaves, 
removed b\- so few vcwrs frc^m African pro- 



228 Some Colonial Homesteads 

genitors, that the older among them resorted, 
by stealth, at night, to a cave in the hills not 
far away, for the practice of Voudoo worship, 
until the custom was discovered by their mas- 
ter and promptly broken up. 

A newspaper letter, printed on paper now 
falling to pieces with age, thus recalls " times " 
that were " old " when it was issued : 

" At Oak Hill, John Livingston resided and owned 
a whole nock of niggers, the fattest, and the laziest, and 
the sauciest set of darkies that ever lay in the sunshine. 
They worked little and ate much, and whenever there 
was a horse-race or a pig-shave at ' the Stauchy ' 
(Staatje) the negroes must have the horses, even if 
their master should be obliged to go about his business 
on foot. When they visited Catskill in tasseled boots 
and ruffled shirts, they were sure to create a sensation, 
and it was not unusual for the ' poor whites ' to sigh for 
the sumptuous happiness of John Livingston's slaves." 

From the simple, touching story of John 
Livingston's last days, given by his grand- 
daughter, I make an extract : 

"When the logs lay piled high on the shining brass 
andirons, and the blaze began to stream up the capacious 
chimney, emitting its cheerful crackling sound. Grand- 
papa would arouse himself, and, with brightened eye, 
and almost his own pleasant smile would listen to the 
stories of our day's adventures. Sometimes he would 



Oak Hill 229 

tell us incidents of his boyhood, stirring events of our 
glorious Revolution, some of whose heroes he had known, 
and remind us, with pardonable pride, that our family 
name was inscribed among those of the fearless signers 
of our great Declaration. Then he would seem to have 
his own children around him, and talk to, and admonish 
us, as if the fathers sat in the places of their sons. But 
the mind was wearing away, and soon relapsed into in- 
action. He daily grew weaker, and I had rather leave a 
blank here for the few sad weeks that preceded the first 
day of October, 1822." 

The majestic relic of a picturesque age known 
to us only by tradition, lay dead for three days 
in the homestead he had built, while the solemn 
concourse of kinspeople and distant friends 
was collecting to attend his funeral. In dining- 
room, upper and lower halls were set tables 

" covered with fair white linen on which were displayed 
treasures of old family silver — large bowls, tankards and 
mugs, bearing the family coat-of-arms" — writes the grand- 
daughter. " Every superfluous ornament was removed 
from the parlor and reception-room, and the family-por- 
traits were draped in black. . . . About twelve o'clock 
the company began to arrive . . . the gentry from all 
the neighboring country-seats in their state carriages. 
These were ushered into the drawing-rooms. Then 
came the substantial farmers, many from a long distance 
with wives and daughters ; last of all, the tenantry and 
poorer neighbors gathered. There was room for all ; 
none were overlooked, and one and all looked sad. . . 



230 Some Colonial Homesteads 

At one o'clock the first tables were served, and the 
others immediately after. It was a motley assemblage. 
Delicacies of every kind had been provided for ' the 
great folk,' as the servants styled our aristocratic guests, 
and they sat down ceremoniously as to a large dinner- 
party. In the halls there was more conviviality. . . . 

" One room only vras quiet. The stillness of death 
was there. Each new-comer had visited it, and many 
had stood, with bowed heads and grave countenances, 
looking on the features of the dead. 

"I shall always remember my grandfather lying, 
dressed as in life, with punctillious neatness, and looking 
as if about to rise and speak lovingly as he always did to 
us in life," 

It was a man, and a master among men, 
whom '' multitudes of vehicles " followed to the 
vault beneath the " Livingston Reformed 
Church of Linlithgow " that October day, when 
hickories and maples were burning bright with 
color, and the grand oaks that gave name to 
the Mansion-house were red, brown and dusky- 
purple. The American laird was xvo petit niaitrc, 
incongruous with true dignity and republican 
simplicity as seem the curl-papers worn dur- 
ing breakfast-time, and the valet-barber vho 
brought curling-tongs, powder and pomatum- 
boxes for Mr. Livingston's daily toilette when 
he was in the city. 




^ 5 

^ ?, 



Oak Hill 233 

The quotation oivcn just now records ^j^raph- 
ically and tenderly a child's impressions of the 
funeral ceremonies of that date, and affords us 
a glimpse of the feudal state in which this grand 
old gentleman lived and died. 

He was succeeded at Oak Hill by his son, 
Mr. Herman Livingston, who died in 1872. 
The pretty boy, who met me on the piazza, 
and seconded his mother's cordial welcome as 
I alighted at the hospitable door, is the fourth 
of the name, in direct line of descent, three of 
whom are still livinor. 

The house stands on the summit of the hill, 
overlooking the river and the back-country, 
white and faint-pink with orchard blossoms in 
the spring-time. Upon the horizon roll and 
tower the beautiful Catskills ; century-old oaks 
enclose the dwelling and out-buildings ; the 
well kept lawn slopes into teeming fields. 

The exterior of the homestead has been re- 
modelled within a quarter-century, at the ex- 
pense of picturesqueness, the mansard roof 
having taken the place of steeper gables. 
Until this alteration, the servants' quarters re- 
mained where John Livingston established 
them — in the basement. There they worked, 
lived and slept. To the modern sanitarian, 



234 Some Colonial Homesteads 

the gain in healthfulness and comfort almost 
compensates for the loss in artistic effect. 
The walls are very thick and built of brick 
manufactured on the Manor. The wood used 
in the structure was hewed from the Living- 
ston woods. Several neiehborinor farm-houses 
were made of bricks imported from Holland, 
but our landed proprietor prided himself 
upon meeting domestic demands by home- 
products. 

Within-doors, the arrangement of the stairs 
and rooms on the first and second floors has 
undergone no change. Deeply set windows, 
tall mantels with the curious putty decorations 
our great-grandmothers delighted in ; broad 
staircases with leisurely landings, please the 
eye of the antiquarian when he can spare atten- 
tion for anything besides the magnificent old 
" kaus " ('' kaas " or '' cos ") which stands in the 
front hall. 

There are whispers of a sacrilegious period ; 
a brief reien of modern irreverence that came 
even to Oak Hill, during which profane youths 
used certain uncomely portraits as targets ; 
when novelty-loving women bartered bureaux, 
deep-colored with age, for fashionable furniture, 
and presumptuous cooks seasoned sauces with 




THE OLD KAUS. 



Oak Mill 237 

wine mcllowecl by a half-cciUury's keeping- und 
a three years' voyage. 

The *' kaus," a hu^\? [)rc'ss. or warch'ohc, or 
ar)}ioiri\ splenditl with carxino-, aiul towerino- 
to the hall ceihno-, lias hrkl its phicc since the 
house was thiishccl. It was ah'eacly ancient 
when John Livino^ston brought it with other 
househoUl ooods to his new mansion. A notc\l 
connoisseur in antiques pronounces the mate- 
rial " Swiss rosewood," the workmanship of a 
period of at least two hundred and fifty years 
old. Other interestino- pieces of furniture 
are here, such as pier-glasses and tables of 
ebony and ^ilt, a pair of folding- card-tables 
which ar(^ undoubtedly Chippendales, massive 
high-post curtain bedsteads, etc., — but none 
compare \\\ venerableness and beauty with the 
kaus. 

The Livineston treasures in china and sil- 
ver are notable. Much of the plate is a direct 
inheritance from Robert the First, and is 
stamped with the family crest. 

One tiny porcelain pitcher has and deserves 
a place of its own. It is a Chinese " sacrificial 
cup," 500 years old, and is said to have come 
over from Holland with the first Robert 
Livingston. There are, so assert experts in 



23^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

china, but four others known to museums and 
art-collectors. 

In the upper hall hangs the portrait of 
Philip Stanhope, the son of Lord Chesterfield, 
the one to whom the famous Letters were 
addressed. Robert Fulton was the painter. 
It is perhaps not generally known that Fulton 
was by profession an artist. The speculations 
and experiments upon Watt's theories respect- 
ing the use of steam which led to the construc- 
tion of the first steamboat, introduced him 
to Stanhope and led to a lasting friendship. 
Robert Fulton's home was at Staatje, less 
than three miles below Oak Hill. In the 
cellar is a huge stone, believed by the super- 
stitious neio^hbors to be enchanted. No one 

<z> 

can lift it and live. 

The neighborhood has greatly changed 
within seventy years. The junketings and 
feastings and brilliant progresses from home- 
stead to homestead, irrespective of season or 
w^eather, belong to an irrevocable Past. But 
the routine of daily being and doing at Oak 
Hill has still in it striking (and the best) feat- 
ures of the country life of the English gentry. 



XI 

THE PHILIPSE MANOR-HOUSE 

AMONG the last grants of land in the New 
World to which were affixed the joint 
signatures of William and Mary, was one made 
in 1693 to Frederick Philipse of their Majes- 
ties' Province of New York. 

This grant, which was virtually a barony 
under the management and sway of the mas- 
terful proprietor, contained many thousand 
acres of woodland, mountain, hillsides and 
fertile meadows. The land now occupied by 
the city of Yonkers was but a tithe of the mag- 
nificent estate. The rights ceded to Philipse 
in perpetuity by the royal grant included the 
liberty, should he elect so to do, to construct 
a ferry or a bridge at what was known as 
'' Spikendevil Ferry," and to collect toll from 
passengers. He gave the name of '' King's 
Bridge " to this thoroughfare. 

239 



240 Some Colonial Homestead 

As he increased in riches, he built for his 
own use and that of his family two notable 
residences, the Philipse Manor- House at 
Yonkers, and Castle Philipse at Sleepy Hol- 
low in Tarrytown. Considerations of con- 
venience unknown to us must have dictated 
the choice of two sites that were not far 
enough apart, the one from the other, to offer 
a decided change of air, winter or summer. 
The annual, or semi-annual Sittings from 
Manor- House to Castle were regulated by 
other causes than those that now close New 
York houses in June, and send the occupants 
across the ocean, or to mountain-tops hundreds 
of feet above the sea-level. 

Both of the Philipse homesteads were large 
and handsome. The parks were stocked with 
tame deer, as in Old England. The extensive 
gardens were laid out and planted in accord- 
ance with formal ideas broucrht from his native 
Holland by the founder of the American 
family. From England and from the Conti- 
nent were imported, besides bulbs, seeds, and 
shrubs, ornamental shade-trees that, taking 
kindly to the hospitable soil, transformed the 
wilderness into plantations which were the 
wonder of the simple neighbors. 



The Philipse Manor-House 241 

None but negro servants were employed in 
the house and about the grounds, but the 
retainers and tenants of the successful planter 
and trader, whom men styled " the Dutch 
millionaire," were many and, in one way and 
another, brought him great gain. From the 
records of a prosperous life that have come 
down to us, we gather that he did his duty by 
kindred and community, not forgetting his 
highly-respectable self, and took a cool, gentle- 
manly interest in public affairs. He sat as 
magistrate in his barony at stated times and 
seasons, hearing evidence and dispensing jus- 
tice as seemed right in his and in his brother- 
magistrates' eyes, and upholding the dominies 
and regular services of the Reformed Dutch 
Church in America.^ 

His nest of ease was rudely stirred at length, 
and trouble came from an unexpected quarter. 

Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont (or Belb- 
mont, as American chronicles spell it), was 
appointed Governor of New England and 
New York in 1695. He filled his brief term 
of office (ended by his death in 1701) with 

' The list of church-members and their residences, kept by Rev. 

Henricus Selyus of the Dutch Reformed Church in Brauwers Straat 

(now part of Stone St.), included in 1686, " De Heer Frederick 

Philipse." 
16 



242 Some Colonial Homesteads 

clamorings against the landed proprietors 
whose " orreat orrants " crave them the state and 
wealth of feudal lords in a country which it 
was to the interest of London emigrant and 
trading companies to have settled by farmers, 
lumbermen, and miners. The men who lived 
" in vassalage " under Livingstons and Philipses, 
Schuylers and Van Cortlandts, might bring 
wealth to their landlords and employers. They 
did not enrich the Mother Country. 

In pursuance of a policy that was, in the 
settlers' eyes, rank agrarian ism, he shaped 
and sent to England for approval a bill restrict- 
ing any one person from holding more than 
one thousand acres of land. 

When his confidential friend, James Gra- 
hame, Attorney-General of the Province, sug- 
gested that, in addition to the proposed bill, 
one be prepared advising the partition of 
grants already existing, naming two "as an 
essay to see how the rest should be borne," 
honest Bellomont wrote home that he would 
not advise the measure unless the rule should 
be made general and "others share the same 
fate." Amonor the " others " were orrants made 
to both the Philipses, father and son. 

Although the personal relations of Bello- 



The Philipse Manor-House 243 



mont and Frederick Philipse remained out- 
wardly unchanged, the sting left in the mind 
of the Lord of the Manor by the attempt to 
clisinteofrate his estate, rankled and burned. 
The open rupture came when Bellomont inti- 
mated that Philipse had profited by the noto- 
rious William Kidd's piratical enterprises. 

Frederick Philipse, Robert Livingston and 
others sent liquors, gun- 
powder and arms in 
their own ships through 
what then corresponded 
with the clearance house 
in New York, to Mada- 
gascar, and the same 
vessels returned in good 
time laden with East 
Indian goods. '' Arab- 
ian orold and East India 

goods were everywhere common." Rum that 
cost two shillintrs a orallon in New York was so 
vastly improved in flavor by the sea-voyage 
that, when it reached Madagascar, it sold for 
three pounds a gallon. The pipe of Madeira 
that could be bought in New York for nineteen 
pounds, brought in Madagascar, presumably 
because of the mellowing wrought by the same 




Jrederik-j-hilipsejls a"/ 



PHILIPSE COAT OF ARMS. 



244 Some Colonial Homesteads 

sea-air and much rolling, three hundred pounds. 
These were tempting profits even to Dutch 
millionaires and Reformed Dutch church-mem- 
bers. Since the island of Madagascar was 
neither the Indies nor El Dorado, people who 
were not ship-owners or millionaires began to 
make inconvenient inquiries. Talk of reform 
troubled the air, and nobody talked more 
loudly than the slow-witted, honest Governor. 
His final demand of those he believed to be 
as upright as himself, was reasonable — or 
seemed to be. Philipse, Van Cortlandt, Liv- 
ingston, Nicholas Bayard, ct ah, were to give 
their personal guarantee that their ships should 
not trade with the pirates with whom the seas 
about Madagascar were a popular resort. 

Disinterested travellers brouofht home wild 
tales of the island itself. It was a nest of 
buccaneers, they said, who had married, from 
generation to generation, the dark-skinned 
daughters of the natives, and their descend- 
ants plied no trade but that of freebooters. 
Their vessels hovered like sharks about the 
watery highway binding the West to the East, 
and preyed indiscriminately upon merchant- 
men of whatever nationality. Yet, five out of 
every ten ships that sailed from the harbor of 



The Philipse Manor-House 245 

New York were bound for this sea-girt Ex- 
change, if the reports of the Governor's agents 
were to be reHed upon. Said the ingenuous 
Earl, confident that the thought had never 
occurred to his astute Holland friends: . . . 
" Such trading is not piracy, perhaps, but it is 
to be feared that much of the merchandise 
brought to New York may have been obtained 
from pirates." 

Had not the gentle suggestion touched the 
pocket-nerves of those to whom it was ad- 
dressed, it must have appealed to their sense 
of the absurd. It was notorious that, as one 
historian puts it, "the whole coast of America 
from Rhode Island to the Carolinas was 
honeycombed " with places of stowage for 
smuggled and stolen cargoes. Sometimes, 
and not seldom, the freebooters who made use 
of these, visited New York in person, without 
waiting to be summoned by the solid men who 
carried the collection-plates on Sunday up and 
down the aisles of churches presided over by 
Dominies Selyus and Everardus Bogardus. 

One of the most notable of the predatory 
guild, Thomas Tew by name, was a particular 
friend of Governor Fletcher. He was re- 
ceived at the Governor's house, was taken on 



246 Some Colonial Homesteads 

an airing in the official coach — perhaps on the 

fashionable '' fourteen miles around " — and 
was the recipient from the great man's hands 
of a tract upon '' The Vile Habit of Swearing/* 
Which incident would go to prove that the 
distinction and respectability of his companion 
in the drive were not sufficient to restrain the 
kniofht of the black tiaij from induls:ence in the 
seamanlike habit. 

Bellomont's mild intimation was hotly re- 
sented by his colleagues. He was accused of 
"vilely slandering eminent and respectable 
persons." and his reputation, thus branded, 
might have been transmitted to us but for 
the /idSiV of the Kidd trial and sentence. 

The stor}- of Captain Kidd has a humorous 
side to the historian who sees it down a vista 
two hundred and one years in depth. It was 
sufficiently serious to separate the chief men 
of the Xew Colony and to drive the Gov- 
ernor frantic. 

Robert Livingston had introduced Kidd to 
Bellomont as '"a bold and honest man. who. 
he believed, was titter than any other to be 
employed in such serA-ice " as the zealous. 
Governor demanded — namely the suppression 
of piracy on the high seas. Livingston had 



The Philipse Manor-House 247 

known the sea-captain for years ; in fact, Kidd 
had sailed the trader's vessels for him more 
than once or twice, and acquitted himself 
most satisfactorily. 

Accordingly, Kidd was put in charge of an 
armed privateer to hunt down and punish the 
freebooters under a Royal Commission. Such 
men as Shrewsbury, Somers, Romney, Orford, 
and Bellomont, paid the expenses of the expe- 
dition and were to share two thirds of the 
spoils taken from captured pirate vessels. 
The remaining third was to go to the King. 
Kidd, in a *' good sailer of about thirty guns 
and 150 men," sailed from London to New 
York in May 1696, and in due time from New 
York to Madagascar. The privateersman had 
unusual intelligence and breeding for one in 
his rank of life, and when the news reached 
England and America that, seduced by the 
attractions of a lawless life, he had turned 
pirate himself, taken unarmed merchantmen, 
murdered crews, and seized upon cargoes, his 
backers were for a while incredulous, then 
confounded. 

His defence, when he was arrested upon 
his return to Boston, was that he had been 
forced by a mutinous crew into piracy, and 



248 Some Colonial Homesteads 

had not profited personally by his evil ways. 
He was executed, without confessing his guilt, 
or implicating any of the gentlemen who fitted 
out his vessel and indorsed his character. 
In spite of his magnanimous silence, more 
than one colonial magnate was openly accused 
of having been cognizant of Kidd's purposes 
and having enriched himself by his iniquity. 
The names of Robert Livingston, the Philipses, 
and, oddly enough, Bellomont himself, did not 
escape the smirch. Scotch Robert seems to 
have borne the aspersion with characteristic 
phlegm until Bellomont's Lieutenant pushed 
the conviction after his chiefs death in 1701, 
and actually suspended Livingston from divers 
and remunerative offices. The story of Oak 
Hill tells the sequel. 

There is no evidence to show that regular 
proceedings were ever instituted against Fred- 
erick (i) Philipse or that Bellomont's suspi- 
cions were more than hinted, — perhaps in the 
heat of his indignation at the preposterous 
connection of his own name with that of the 
criminal whom he had innocently aided and 
abetted. He made no secret of his animosity 
against Livingston who had got him into the 
ugly scrape. Even when Robert Livingston 



The Philipse Manor-House 249 

appeared boldly before the Governor and 
Council and acquitted himself of all and every 
unlawful and treacherous design, Bellomont 
did not withdraw the charges. He went so 
far as to declare his intention of removing 
the false friend from the Council, a design 
frustrated by his own sudden death. 

Bellomont's allusion to the possibility that 
Frederick Philipse's coffers were the fuller 
for the booty never accounted for by Kidd, 
was unpardonable in the eyes of the Lord 
of the Manor. 

'' With characteristic reticence and cold 
resentment Philipse retired from any further 
part in public affairs," writes the historian of 
the quarrel. 

The sentence is tersely significant. He 
could do better without the government than 
the government could do without his counsels 
and his millions. An opulent Cincinnatus, he 
lived, henceforward, upon his estates, enjoyed 
his family and directed his foresters, millers, 
and husbandmen to their content and his own 
emolument until his death on December 23, 
1 702. Robert Livingston outlived him twenty 
years. 

Philip, the son of Frederick (i) Philipse 



250 Some Colonial Homesteads 

had died in 1700, and the Manor- House be- 
came, at the demise of the late Lord, the 
property of his grandson namesake, Fred- 
erick Philipse the Second. 

Bellomont's craze for the subversion of 
manorial rights and for humbling the arro- 
gance of largely landed proprietors, died with 
him. The River — always spoken of as if 
there were no other in North America — saw 
brave days for the next half-century. The 
Livingstons at Oak Hill and Clermont, and 
the Van Cortlandts in their Manor-House at 
Croton, were suzerains, each in his own princi- 
pality. Eva Philipse, the daughter of Fred- 
erick (i) had married a Van Cortlandt, thus 
cementinof the bond of interest and friend- 
ship already existing between the households. 
The De Peysters lived in ducal splendor in 
their Queen Street Mansion, the finest in 
New York City. It had a frontage of eighty 
feet upon the street, was sixty feet deep, and 
three lofty stories in height. There were 
nine thousand dollars' worth of silverware^ 
and a wealth of cut-glass and china that cost 
quite as much, in use in the hospitable 
abode, so we read in the family annals ; and a 
De Peyster who was made Mayor of New 



\§r^«-»--ii^ 




The Philipse Manor-House 253 

York was reckoned the handsomest man in 
that city. 

The Philipse Manor-House kept fully 
abreast of its contemporaries In the march of 
luxury. Frederick Second had come to a 
ready-made fortune and assured position, with 
nothing to do but to enjoy both. Warned, 
perhaps, by his father s experience not to mix 
himself up in politics, or indifferent to the 
statecraft of what was hardly more than the 
adopted country of one whose mother was an 
Englishwoman, and who had been educated in 
England himself, he took no public office and 
devoted his abundant energies to the improve- 
ment of his property. The mansion, con- 
sidered palatial in his grandfather's day, was 
trebled In size. Sixteen Grecian columns sup- 
ported the eaves of the porticoed wings, and 
the roof of the central building was capped by 
a massive balustrade forming a spacious obser- 
vatory. Workmen were brought from abroad 
to decorate the interior. The walls were 
panelled in rare woods, and the ceilings were 
fretted into arabesque patterns. The marble 
Inner mantels were sculptured to order In 
Italy, we are told, and imported through an 
English firm. The main entrance-hall was 



254 Some Colonial Homesteads 

fourteen feet wide and ran the whole depth of 
the house. From this a broad staircase with 
mahogany balusters swept upward to noble 
chambers that were tilled for the greater part 
of the year to their fullest capacit)-. In the 
attics there were accommodations for more than 
fifty servants. 

The terraced lawn, studded with imported 
trees and clumps of ornamental shrubbery. 
sloped down to and be\ond the post-road trom 
New York to Albany. The famil\- and quests 
of the Manor- House, seated in portico and 
grove, saw rolling- along under the trees lining 
the thoroughfare, round- bodied chariots, each 
drawn by four horses, belonging to the neigh- 
boring gentr\-. and government post-chaises 
and coaches with uniformed guards on top 
and gayly-jacketed postillions upon the leaders. 
Conspicuous among the fine equipages was the 
splendid four-in-hand of my Lady Philipse, 
}itc loanna Brockholls. whose father (an Eng- 
lishman) was at onetime Lieutenant-Governor 
of Xew York. She drove her four jet-black 
stallions with her own strong, supple hands, 
winning and maintaining the reputation of 
being the most dashing whip of the Province. 
until she was pitched headlong from the box. 



The riiilii>sc Manor-House 



one cla\" carK" in the sovciuics. aiul kiUcJ 
instaiuK'. 

In 1743. liror^\> ChnUMi, second son ot the 
V.Avl o\ CHnton. lorniorK' Admiral in the Hrit- 
ish \a\\". thcMi luncM'norot Now I'oundhnul, 
and from 1741 1751, ^.Wnornor oi tho Trcn- 
inco o\ \c\\ \ovk, hold aconforonco in Alban\' 
with sixteen saehenis ot the Six Nations. 
The whilom Admiral had a lnis\' hoe in his 
honnet in the (.jiiesticMi oi inxadin;^- hd'oneh 
Canada with the help oi his Indian allies. 
The confcM-ence came to nothinj^-. and the 
harassed otticial. on his wa\' dcnxn the riwM', 
spent sewM'al da\s at l^'hilipse Manor. A 
pleasanter method oi i^ettlni:^" rid oi care and 
chaL:rin could hardK' 1h^ devised. His host 
was a Knickerbocker edition oi WdUiam hA'cKn 
In rd- in wealth, social intluence. coinalinc^s of 
manner, and hospitalit\', albeit Inrd's interior 
in scholarly attainments and political prc^sti^-e. 

His baii^lish education and tamiK' associa- 
tions bcM\^ truit in his preterence tor the b^pis- 
copal. above the Dutch Retormed Church ot 
which his forefathers had been zealous sup- 
porters. His last will aiul testament provided 
for the erection of St. ji^hn's Episcopal Clun-ch 
upon a suitable site oi his estate. He donated, 



250 Some Colonial Homesteads 

also, two hundred and fifty acres tor a glebe 
farm, and a handsome sum of money where- 
with to build a parsonage upon the same. 

His son and successor Frederick i^j;") was a 
graduate of Kino's Colle^-e, Xew York, now 
Columbia University. Like his father, he was 
** a distinguished ornament to polite society," 
with no political aspirations, and was well con- 
tent to keep up in feudal state the hereditary 
estates and to spend the money his great- 
grandfather had made. In politics he would 
have liked to be a trimmer, and to avoid with 
graceful diplomacy the necessity of telling the 
truth as to his (perfectly natural) royalist pro- 
clivities. The way of the neutralist became 
harder and harder as the stir of the times 
waxed in tumult. The Lord of Philipse 
]\Linor, nevertheless, played his part so well 
that when Washington and his staff were his 
guests for seven or eight days just before the 
battle of White Plains, October 28, 1770, no 
suspicions of his lovalt\" to the popular cause 
marred the comfort of the visit. 

The south-west chamber of the mansion was 
occupied bv Washington during this visit. The 
sight-seer of to-da\" looks upon the unchanged 
shell of the room. The four deeph' embra- 



The Philipsc Maiior-House :^57 

sured windows arc tilled with the sinall-pancd 
sashes throuj^h which the Chief looked out 
upon the liudson and the Palisades. The 
hre-place, sunken fully three feet into the 
chininev, is lined with old Dutch tiles, blue- 
and-white. that tell now. as they told then, the 
stor\' of Zaccheus' tree and Moses' broken 
tables of the law. varied b\" HolUuul wind-mills. 
At the very back a movable panel ot sheet- 
iron is embossed with Elijah and the ravens. 
It bears the date 1760. The o-rave eyes of 
the Colonial Moses must often have rested 
u[H^n it while he mused upon the darkening" 
fortiuies of the Infant Republic. Did a som- 
bre picture of possible abandonment and exile 
for himself, and a Cherith un\isited b\- miracu- 
lous winged sutlers, arise between him and the 
rude bas-relief in the October midnights when 
the river winds moaned without to the drif ting- 
leaves ? 

A secret passage led from this room — some 
think through the movable chimney-back — to 
an underground retreat and a tunnelled pas- 
sage to the river. 

Frederick (3) Philipse had three charming- 
sisters one of whom (Susan) married Colonel 
Beverlev Robinson, a son of the Robinson 



258 Some Colonial Homesteads 

who succeeded Gooch as Governor of Virginia. 
Colonel Robinson had fought under Wolfe at 
Quebec, and holding, as he did, a commission 
in the Royal Army, sympathized heartily with 
the parent Government. At the outbreak of 
the Revolutionary War, he so far sanctioned 
rebellion as to insist practically upon the en- 
couragement of home industries by clothing 
his household in homespun, and repudiated 
taxed tea and other foreign luxuries. When 
pushed hard for a declaration of his principles, 
he could not add to this outward conformity 
to colonial usages the assertion that he be- 
lieved in the open separation of the provinces 
from the crown. The time for half-way meas- 
ures had passed, and "trimming" was so far 
out of fashion that he was, early in the war, 
obliged to leave his beautiful country-seat, 
"Beverley" — a present to his wife from her 
father, the second Frederick Philipse — and 
remove, first, to the city of New York, then 
to England. 

His son, Frederick Robinson, was knighted 
for gallant service in the British army, and 
sent back to America as Governor of Upper 
Canada in 181 5. There is a pretty story of a 
visit paid by him to his birth-place, Beverley, 





FIRE-PLACE IN THE "WASHINGTON CHAMBER" OF PHILIPSE MANOR- 



HOUSE. 



The Philipse Manor-House 261 

and how the stout heart of the soldier meked 
into tears at siorht of the remembered beauties 
of his boyhood's home. 

A second son of Beverley Robinson, — Wil- 
liam Henry, — was likewise knighted. His wife 
was an American beauty, the daughter of 
Cortlandt Skinner of New Jersey. 

Mary Philipse is better known in romantic 
history than her sisters by reason of the 
romance connecting her name with that of 
George Washington. In 1756, the young 
Virginia Colonel, then commanding on the 
frontier of the British provinces in America, 
made a journey from his native state to 
Boston on military business. While in New 
York City he was the guest of his compatriot. 
Colonel Beverley Robinson, at the town house 
of the latter. Mary Philipse was staying with 
her sister Susan at the time. Her bright eyes 
are said to have wrought such mischief upon the 
affections of the distinguished visitor as had 
another Mary's eight years before, when, as a 
raw-boned Westmoreland lad, Washington 
met the beautiful sister of Sally (Cary) Fair- 
fax at the Fairfax homestead of Belvoir, in 
Virginia. Some say that the Maries were 
alike in their non-appreciation of the love-lorn 



262 Some Colonial Homesteads 

wooer. Others are of opinion that, in Miss 
Philipse's case, the affair never came to a head, 
and that in the encounter of girlish coquetry 
and Southern gallantry, "nobody was hurt." 

She knew her own mind and acted upon it 
when Roeer Morris — who had borne arms 
under Braddock and fought side by side with 
Washintrton at the fateful battle of Mononora- 
hela, on th^^ ninth day of July, 1755 — sued for 
her hand. It is quite within the range of 
probability, and the coincidence that makes 
up the most dramatic situations of human life, 
that the two young men may have fought the 
battle over again in Beverley Robinson's New 
York house. 

The marriage of Mary Phllipse and Roger 
Morris was celebrated with great splendor at 
Phllipse Manor In 1758. Shortly afterward, 
the bridegroom set about building upon Har- 
lem Heights what was afterward known as 
Fort Washington, and later, as the Jumel 
House. In 1776, the Morrises, being Roy- 
alists, were driven from their elegant home by 
the advance of the American forces under 
General Washington. The military encamp- 
ment on Harlem Heights followed hard upon 
the flleht of the owners of the mansion to 




MANTEL AND SECTION OF CEILING IN DRAWING-ROOM OF PHILIPSE MANOR-HOUSE. 
263 



The Philipse Manor-House 265 

Beverley which was still occupied by the 
Robinsons. Washington's headquarters were 
in the deserted Harlem house. 

Another irony of fate, at which the grim 
beldam herself must have smiled, came about 
near the same date. Mrs. Roger Morris had 
inherited from a bachelor uncle an extensive 
tract of New York lands, including Lake 
Mahopac. It was her custom to spend a 
month or six weeks of each summer there, 
before and after her marriage, living and 
working among her humble tenants. Her 
home was in a log-hut built as a hunting-lodge 
by her uncle, and she attended church in the 
loft of the ''Red Mill" belonging to the 
Philipses. The spirit and conduct of these 
vacations foreshadowed the College Settle- 
ments and Rivinofton Street Homes of to- 
day. 

This same Red Mill became a store-house 
for the commissary supplies of the American 
army, and Washington passed more than one 
night in the lodge that had so often sheltered 
the fair head of his putative Dulcinea. 

In 1779, Frederick (3) Mary Morris's 
brother, was formally attainted of treason and 
his manorial estates were confiscated. The 



266 Some Colonial Homesteads 

same catastrophe befell Beverley and other of 
the Robinsons' possessions. I cannot refrain 
from relating- in connection with Beverley an 
incident of the Revolutionary \\ ar, the im- 
portance and dramatic intensity of which have 
had but a passing comment from historians. 

When Arnold, then in command of West 
Point, met Washington, Hamilton, and Lafay- 
ette in conference at King's Ferry, down the 
river, April i 7, i 780, he had in his pocket, or 
so he alleoed, a letter from " Colonel Beverlev 
Robinson's agent," relative to the confiscation 
of his client's countrv-seat. and beoforincr that 
he mieht have an interview with General Ar- 
nold on the subject, under the protection of a 
flag-of-truce. 

Hamilton's clear legal mind had the answer 
ready by the time Arnold ceased speaking. 

The question was one for a civil court, and 
not for a military commission, he said, con- 
cisely, and put an end to the discussion. 

Lafayette, moved perhaps by the discom- 
fiture which Arnold could not wholly conceal, 
tried to turn the matter off with a jest. 

*' Since you are in correspondence with the 
enemy. General Arnold," — in his French accent 
and in his most debonaire manner — " will you 



The Philipse Manor-House 267 

have the kindness to Inquire of them what has 
become of the French squadron we have been 
looking for since many days ? " 

Haci the petition of Colonel Robinson's 
'' agent " as presented by Arnold, been granted, 
the interview with Andre would have been held 
under a tiag-of-truce and by permission of the 
Commander-in-Chief of the American armies. 
Washington sent word a few hours in advance 
of his arrival, that he would breakfast with 
General and Mrs. Arnold at Beverley on the 
very day secretly appointed by Arnold for the 
passage of General Clinton's ship up the river 
and the surrender of West Point. Before 
Washington reached the house, word of Andre's 
capture was brought to the traitor and he made 
his escape. Andre was taken as a prisoner, 
first to Beverley — then to Tappan where he 
was executed. 

In 1785, the confiscated Philipse Manor- 
House tract was cut up into lots and sold by 
the State of New York. The mansion and 
grounds were bought by Cornelius P. Low, a 
wealthy citizen of the fast-growing town on 
Manhattan Island. He never occupied It. 
The purchase was either a freak of fancy or a 
speculation. The place was sold over and 



268 Some Colonial Homesteads 

over again in the next fifty years. The longest 
tenancy by any one family was twenty-nine 
years. It was at last bought by the town of 
Yonkers and converted into a City Hall. 

A tablet in the front hall states that the 
house was built in 1682 ; was created Manor 
of Philipseburg in 1693; confiscated to the 
U. S. Government in 1779, and sold by the 
same in 1785 ; that it was occupied as a private 
residence until the town of Yonkers bought it 
in 1868, became the City Hall in 1872, and 
that a Bi-centennial Celebration was held here 
in 1882. The inscription outlines the history 
of the venerable structure which is still in ex- 
cellent preservation. The immense front-door 
— cut in two, half-way up, after the Dutch fash- 
ion revived by the architects of modern subur- 
ban villas — swings upon the same hinges as 
when the clumsy wrought iron latch, a foot 
long, was lifted by the hand of the second 
Frederick in his goings-out and comings-in, 
and the wide stairs, with the twisted mahogany 
balusters, echoed to the high-heeled shoes of 
pretty Mary Philipse as she paced slowly down 
to her bridal. 

She married Roger Morris in the drawing- 
room to the left of the wide Dutch door with 




MANTEL AND MIRROR OF SECOND-STORY-FRONT ROOM IN PHILIPSE MANOR-HOUSE. 
269 



The Philipse Manor-House 271 

the fan-hght on top. The ceiHng is elabo- 
rately decorated In the much-esteemed '' putty- 
work " of those times, which is also a popular 
fad of ours. The four medallion bas-reliefs 
are said to be portraits, but nobody knows of 
what members of the family. Figures of 
graces playing upon musical instruments, strut- 
ting roosters, and divers sorts of flowers and 
fruits, make up a pleasing collection of sub- 
jects, albeit incongruous. The wooden mantel 
is hand-carved and supported by a fluted pillar 
at each end. Across the hall is the dining- 
room. The oak wainscoting has been re- 
mxoved from the sides and from one end. At 
the upper end it has been retained and is orna- 
mented by a medallion portrait of Washington. 
However wild may have been the dreams of 
the oriorinal as he sat at meat in the lonor room 
with his courtly host, they certainly did not 
comprise the possibility that the manorial ban- 
quet-hall would ever boast of his likeness as 
the chief adornment. 

Above the dining-room is the Common 
Council Chamber of the city of Yonkers. The 
partitions of five bedrooms were removed to 
give the required length to the official quarters. 
The oaken beams taken out in the alteration 



2/2 Some Colonial Homesteads 

were converted into desks and seats for the 
use of the councilmen. 

"And many a saw and plane were broken 
on the seasoned wood," says the intelligent 
janitor who shows the building. " It was al- 
most as hard as iron." 

In a corner lies an unexploded shell, fired 
from an English vessel and dug up in the 
grounds of the Manor-House several years ago. 

Above the fine mantel of the large front-room 
in the second story are carved the three feath- 
ers that have been the coat-of-arms of the 
Prince of Wales since the blind old Kino- of 

o 

Bohemia left his crest with his dead body upon 
the field of Crecy. On both sides of the man- 
tel-mirror run exquisite carvings in wood of 
vines, grapes, pomegranates, flowers, and birds. 
The cornice of the room, like that of the draw- 
ing-room, is of wood and cunningly carved into 
a toothed border. 

Back of this chamber is the southwestern 
room already described in which Washington 
slept while a guest here. 

A curious inscription, framed and hung at 
the end nearest the door, is copied from a tab- 
let in Chester Cathedral, England, where 
Frederick Philipse Is buried. 



I- \ ^^ I ..1 I. \ >■> II H (II < 11 111 Vt llUUi 

„n , „(Iv I .,.(.. (.Til.- ( lljt..,i„ 
K... ,f r . I. ..1 Mis . ..i.Ji . . ...M.ui.ii.l ,1 r/i,- 
I'll....m <.t .»h, r ^>\,i'n I )!, IUm 'V i „ . t III 

H < 1. 711.1 <i. 11.1 1 t II,. \i Mil, 1 J. , .. a 

.1.. , I ^ *,i„.K M, , J„ I (..III .-%. |.;--1. i 

nu I ili |{. I (i .1. >>nl\iU ,u uJJ. ni.M.,s,.,J,at 1 
,1,, H . , 1 ' r fh l,,i,-. iJ... l.T I;,|..lli«aui 

V l!l, \m.-(I l..t * P ri,' r.lfl III II -llM". 

! fl, l»I . ( M. K i . II. I I I Uliv II.. W , . 

1 .lit..! u.l il. 1 i I , I .• u. t ll,.-L....- liu 

\ .. ^ .!> iiJilcjied-.l.j-U.' 1 liifi. .1 1 .• a! ,11.111 
,i th I r. M„r<-.VVJi<.u ill.' H. .1 , h'l. ..j. ««.« 

VMll..!. ».„ 1. l.i \..« ^<M-k Ml 1783 II. ., lli(<-.l 

V l'< .1.. . I.. »iii". I. U. ii..l,.l»,r I... u .u 

O, a . ui.-^« . n.J Ii. u. 1 < . < ..I. .u.l . (111. 1.. 

Im. |,uI.I...»i.. ,Uiljsi'wp-xrvl.,-liiu.lUi.i. , 

ul'iiii i.\.i1<<.1 Fdt { ( uc He iitir.- wii K 
ih. » . Ini.. U. r.ii <iT.,l^ ,».l D;..,ii <> 
Hi,.. I. i. ..I .1,11 „ , , I.. .1 Ml,.. <i,.i,< -I. 
■ . . > r. . 111. , . . ( I, It.-. 



II.- v., I., ra ,( \.y^ \.„:kihe t2^,hy,^-'.iUml^^ 
,„ (I,. \. ,, l/i-O; ,,,1./ ]li...l,u /Iiisl'la..- <l»o30'J; 
.( - t \|.,il,m <J,.-Yr..i- 1785 Aj'".-.I 65 l>.»r.-.. 



^.. 



'i 






MEMORIAL TABLET IN PHILIPSE MANOR-HOUSE. 



The Philipse Manor-House 



/ ."^ 



The finale (^"Loaned by Ethan Flago- ") 
signifies that it was phiced here by a descend- 
ant of the defrauded Lord of the JNIanor. 
Our cut oives the testimonial exactly as it 
stands upon the wall of an American temple 
of Justice. Across the pathos of lines penned 
in sad oood faith, flickers a o'leam of humor 
that was never in the mind of composer or 
scribe, as the reader contrasts tablet with en- 
vironment. 




XII 

THE JUMEL MANSION. ON WASHINGTON 
HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CITY 



AS we have read in the story of the Phihpse 
Manor- House, the most brilHant weddnig- 

of the year i 758 was celebrated in the drawing- 
room of that famous 
homestead when JVIary 
Phihpse gave her hand 
to Roger ]\Iorris. The 
bridegroom was a son 
of Charles ]\I orris of 
Wandsworth, England, 
liad served under Brad- 
dock, and otherwise dis- 
tinguished himself in 
the British army. The 
bride was "a woman of 

great beauty as well as force of will," writes 

one historian who cannot wi 

276 




ROGER MORRIS COAT-OF-ARMS. 



thhold the oratui- 



The Jumcl Mansion 277 

tous assumption — " If she had married Wash- 
ington, some think she would have made him 
a royahst." 

The orossip of her conquest of the Great 
Rebel has had more to do with keeping her 
name alive than her "great beauty" of person 
and strength of character. Mary Gary, the 
wife of Edward Ambler, Gentleman, was living 
at Jamestown, Virginia. Colonel Beverley 
Robinson whose father had resided for a time 
in Williamsburg, then the capital of the Old 
Dominion, might have been able to tell his 
beautiful sister-in-law something of that early 
romance that would have abated the natural 
vanity every woman feels in the review of the 
'' rejected addresses " which are, after a few 
years, of no value except to the (former) owner. 

There is no accounting for feminine taste in 
the matter of husbands. Mary Morris would 
not have cared a whit for the old affair with 
that other Mary, if she had ever heard it 
(which is unlikely). Nor did she envy the 
Widow Custis, although news came to her 
early in 1759 ^^ another splendid wedding, 
this time in tide-water Virginia. When she 
and her Roger took possession of the fine 
house he had built for her on Harlem Heights, 



27S Some Colonial Homesteads 

she would not have exchanged places with any 
other matron or maid in the New World, or in 
the Old. Her well-beloved brother Frederick 
lived, literally like a lord, in the dear old 
Manor- House under the balustraded roof of 
which she had drawn her first breath ; her sis- 
ter Susan was the happy wife of a gallant offi- 
cer and the mistress of fair Beverley. Neither 
of these homes was more beautiful for situation 
than the newer mansion constructed to please 
her fancy and to subserve her convenience. 

The growing city of New York was visible 
between the clumps of the native forest-trees 
which Roger Morris had the good sense to 
leave standing upon the spreading lawn. 

New York, at that date, as a sprightly writer 
tells us, " was a city without a bath-room, with- 
out a furnace, with bed-rooms which, in winter, 
lay within the Arctic Zone, with no ice during 
the torrid summers, without an omnibus, with- 
out a moustache, without a match, without a 
latch-key." 

It was no worse off in these respects than 
older London, we may observe in passing. 
Whatever of comfort and luxury pertained to 
the aee was as much Mrs. Morris's as if her 
husband's domain were a dukedom on the 



I 



The Jumel Mansion 279 

other side of the water. The dearth of bath- 
rooms and latch-keys was not fek by those 
who had never heard of such alleviations of 
ancient and honorable inconveniences. New 
York represented Society to the dwellers upon 
the wooded heights of Harlem. The circle, 
made up of DePeysters, DeLanceys, Bayards, 
Van Cortlandts, Livingstons, and the like, was 
a fit setting for such gems as the Philipse sis- 
ters. In the torrid summers, the hill-top 
crowned by Beverley, and the forest lands 
about Lake Mahopac wooed the owners to re- 
treats that were as truly home as the city and 
suburban mansions. 

For all that has reached us to the contrary, 
the bright, brave woman who led the fashions 
in New York for three quarters of the year, 
and played Lady Bountiful to her Putnam 
County tenants from July to October, had few 
crooks in the lot to which Roeer Morris had 
called her, until the war-cloud burst above her 
very head. 

When the Commander-in-Chief of the 
American forces sat down to supper on the 
evening of September 21, 1776, at the table 
that had been presided over for eighteen years 
by the handsomest of his alleged loves, the 



C 




2So Some Colonial Homesteads 

homestead was alread\- onh' the "deserted 
house of Colonel Roger Morris. Tory." The 
warrior had other things upon 
his mind than loverK' reminis- 
cences. The shadows which 
made yet more serious a visage 
rarely lighted by a smile durino; 
those crucial days, were called 
up b)' practical and present 

ROGER MORRIS. ,1' ii'i -i 1 • 1 1 

troubles. W hile his head-quart- 
ers were in the Morris House, the number of 
soldiers under his command was not twenty- 
four thousand, all told. Of these, seven thou- 
sand were sick or disabled, lea\ing less than 
eighteen thousand ht for duty. 

Rebel and Republican 'though he was, 
Washington was a patrician at heart. Not the 
least of the minor worries that chased laughter 
from his lips and sleep from his pillow, at this 
juncture of his fortunes, was the indifferent 
quality of those next to him in command. 
The privates were better-born and bred, as 
a rule, than their officers. When a Briga- 
dier General pulled off his coat at the mess- 
table and carved a baron of beef in his shirt- 
sleeves, and a Captain of horse in a Connecti- 
cut regiment shaved a private soldier on the 



The Jumel Mansion 281 

parade-ground right under the windows of the 
drawino-room, all the o-entleman and the marti- 
net within the Master of Mt. \ ernon, revolted. 
He was, throughout his eventful life, the 
devotee of order and the disciple of routine, 
fastidious in his personal habits, and jealous 
for the dignity of rank. Adjutant-General 
Reed is our authority for tlie shaving-scene, 
and the date was October 5, 1776. 

A general s/i/>s/iO(il(^iness pervaded the arm}', 
from the officers down to the pickets, who 
scraped acquaintance with the British sentinels 
on the other side of tlie creek and bartered 
chews of tobacco with them bv weiehtine the 
quids with pebbles and llinging them across 
the water. It is not pleasant to reflect how 
the homestead fared during the occupancy of 
such officers, and what ruin must have been 
wrought in the beautiful orrounds. 
, Fourteen years afterward, we find Washing- 
ton once more at the Morris House. 

In the Presidential diary of July 10, 1790, is 
this entry, made in the formal, colorless style 
of the distinguished penman : 

" Having formed a party consisting of the Vice-Presi- 
dent, his lady, and Miss Smith, the Secretaries of State, 
Treasury, and War, and tlie Ladies of the two latter, with 



282 Some Colonial Homesteads 

all the gentlemen of my family, Mrs. Lear and the two 
children, we visited the old position of Fort Washington, 
and afterwards dined on a dinner prepared by Mr. 
Marriner at the house, lately Colonel Roger Morris', but 
confiscated and in occupation by a common farmer." 

The plebeian agriculturist, having prepared 
at his house the dinner on which the auorust 
personages were to dine, would have had them 
eat it in doors, we gather from other sources, 
but the visitors, the like of which had never 
sat down to his board, insisted upon turning 
the affair into a picnic. The collation was 
spreaci upon the grass under the trees, and to 
the amazement and chagrin of the bovine 
host { ?) the Chief Magistrate and his following 
partook of it as Mr. Marriner was used to see 
his laborers devour bread and cold pork in the 
" nooning." 

The ''we" of the aforesaid diar}^ was not 
official, but conjugal, and '' the two children " 
were Mv Ladv Washinofton's o^randson and 
oranddauo-hter. Reminiscences of the messes 
and councils, the dreading and the planning of 
I 776 must have slipped into the lively luncheon 
talk. It is within the bounds of probability 
that a thought of the dethroned lady of the 
manor mav have won a stitieci sio-h from Ro^er 




283 



HENRY QAQE MORRIS, REAR-ADMIRAL IN THE BRITISH NAVY. 
CSON OF ROGER AND MARY MORRIS.) 



The Jumel Mansion 



285 



Morris's former brother-in-arms and her quon- 
dam admirer, in the reflection of her changed 
estate in exile and comparative poverty. 

Mary Morris died in London at the great 
age of ninety-live, in 1825. 

The house built 
for her by her bride- 
groom, and in which 
she spent eighteen 
happy years, was 
sold by the United 
States crovernment 
to J ohn J acob Astor. 
In 1 8 10 it passed 
into the hands of 
Stephen Jumel, a 
New York mer- 
chant, although by 
birth a Prenchman. 
Wh(m a mere boy 
he had emigrated 
to San Uomingo 

and there became an opulent cofl^ee-planter. 
About the time that Farmer Marriner was 
entertaining his great folks upon the lawn at 
Fort Washington, the future master was a 
beggared fugitive, skulking in woods and be- 




mary fphilipsej morris 
Cat the age of 95). 



286 Some Colonial Homesteads 

hind sand-hills to escape the fury of the insur- 
gent blacks. More fortunate than most of his 
fellow-planters, he attracted the notice of a 
passing vessel and was taken on board. At 
St. Helena, the first port touched by the ves- 
sel after leaving the island, he went ashore, 
and in one way and another, made money 
enough in the course of a year or so, to take 
him to New York. Upon his arrival in that 
city he found that a cargo of coffee, shipped 
from San Domingo on the eve of the insurrec- 
tion, had been received by the consignees, 
and that the proceeds awaited his pleasure. 
The unexpected flotsam and jetsam was the 
nucleus of a fortune that ranked him in due 
time among the merchant princes of New 
York. 

He married, April 7, 1804, Miss Eliza 
Bowen of Providence, Rhode Island, a beauti- 
ful blonde, with a superb figure and graceful 
carriage. At the date of the marriaofe her 
physical charms were in the glory of early ma- 
turity. She was twenty-seven years of age, 
having been born April 2, 1777. M. Jumel 
was nearing his fiftieth birthday, but alert, 
vigorous, and courtly, and passionately enam- 
ored of his bride. 



The Jumel Mansion 287 

The marriage was solemnized at St. Peter's 
Church, in Barclay Street, and the wedding- 
party drove from the church door to an elegant 
house on Bowling Green which M. Jumel had 
purchased and fitted up with express reference 
to the taste and comfort of his prospective 
wife. There were present at the wedding- 
breakfast a few intimate friends of the happy 
couple, including the French Consul and the 
priest who had performed the ceremony, the 
bridegroom being a Roman Catholic. A corps 
of West Indian servants waited at table and in 
the house. M. Jumel would have no others 
when he could get these. 

The feast over and the guests dispersed, he 
invited his bride to accompany him in a drive 
" into the country," stating that a friend had 
lent him carriage, horses, and coachman for 
this occasion. The excursion took in the pres- 
ent site of the City Hall, but could hardly have 
led them so far as the shaded roads dividing 
the farms above Twenty-third Street. 

As they alighted at their own door on their 
return, M. Jumel inquired : 

"How are you pleased with the carriage and 
horses ? " and upon receiving the answer, re- 
plied, gallantly : 



288 Some Colonial Homesteads 

" They are yours, my dear." 

The chariot cost eio^ht hundred dollars, a 
frig-htful sum in the ears of the economist who 
reflects upon the value of a dollar at that time. 
The gift was an earnest of the lavish generos- 
ity displayed toward his wife for the almost 
thirty years of their wedded life. She was 
clever, energetic, and ambitious. He recog- 
nized her intellectual abilit\', and encouraged 
her m the course of reading and study which 
she began forthwith in order to fit herself for 
the position he had given her. She learned to 
speak French like a native, her musical skill 
was above mediocrity ; in conversation she was 
not surpassed in brilliant effects and sterling 
sense by any woman in her circle, than which 
there was no better in New York. In busi- 
ness affairs she was her husband's co-adviser, 
and, as the future was to prove, his equal in 
commercial sagacity. In 1812, M. Jumel re- 
tired from the active cares of business life and 
set about the full enjoyment of the immense 
fortune he had amassed. 

His permanent residence had been for two 
years at Fort Washington, as it was still calleci. 
His family consisted of his wife and Madame's 
young niece, whom the childless couple had 



The Jumel Mansion 289 

adopted, and the house was continually full of 
company. 

" Among the celebrities who have visited 
this mansion were Louis Philippe, Lafayette, 
Talleyrand, Joseph Bonaparte, Louis Napo- 
leon, Prince de Joinville," etcetera. 

The list, drawn from family papers, is too 
long to be copied here. P rom the same source 
we learn that Louis Napoleon was a guest here 
while a poverty-stricken exile, and that M. Ju- 
mel lent him money, a benefaction gratefully 
recollected when the emigj^e was elevated, 
first, to the Presidency, then to the Imperial 
throne. 

Turning the pages, our eyes are arrested by 
a startling paragraph : 

" M. Jumel was an ardent Bonapartist, and 
in 181 5, on the first day of June, sailed in his 
own ship. The Eliza " (named for his wife) '' to 
France with his wife and her niece, who was a 
young miss, with the idea of bringing the fallen 
Emperor to this country." 

The sum which the French millionaire was 
ready to invest in the desperate enterprise, was 
said to represent the half of his fortune. 

" On arriving, he proffered the Emperor 
safe conduct to America, and an asylum there. 



290 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Napoleon returned M. Jumel his heartfelt 
thanks, but declined to attempt the escape." 

The transaction in Emperors might have 
been unfortunate for the Bonapartist financier 
but for the popularity and finesse of his clever 
wife. The Marquis de Cubieres had been be- 
friended by the Jumels when a penniless emigre 
in America, and he was high in favor with 
Charles X. Madame speedily became a favor- 
ite at Court ; the most distinguished people 
flocked to her salon, and she kept on excellent 
terms with all political parties. With rare 
skill she avoided the chance of disagreeable 
encounters by inviting Bourbon and Bonaparte 
partisans upon different evenings. It was a 
bold game, but she proved herself adequate to 
cope with hazards and to conquer difficulty. 

For five years she revolved and sparkled in 
the orbit defined by her genius, and in which 
her husband's wealth enabled her to move. 

She is reported to have said, in after days, 
that she had never really lived except during 
that enchanting semi-decade. In beauty, wit, 
and the tactful address innate with the Parisian 
woman of the world, and seldom acquired by 
those who are not born with It, she developed 
like a splendid tropical flower brought suddenly 



The Jumel Mansion 291 

into the sunshine. Henceforward, and to the 
end of her Hfe, she was the Frenchwoman, 
with few traces of the New York milHonaire's 
wife in carriage and speech, and none of the 
Rhode Island shell she had cast away when 
she married M. Jumel. There are many tales 
of her Court triumphs that, however exag- 
gerated they may be by much telling, bespeak 
the fulfilment of her ambitions. 

Not a whisper was ever breathed against her 
fealty to her husband who, on his part, likewise 
found engrossing and congenial occupation in 
the French capital. The Government was will- 
ing to borrow American gold upon favorable 
terms, and the Bourse was abundant in op- 
portunities to swell his wealth by personal 
speculations. Sometimes he made money, 
sometimes, and at length with alarming fre- 
quency, he lost it. 

A crash that sobered both husband and 
wife came in 1821 — not total ruin, but reverses 
that burned away the showy husks and showed 
of what sterling stuff the character of each was 
composed. Consultations which appear to 
have been as amJcable as they were shrewd, 
resulted in a division of labors. Madame sailed 
for New York, bringing great spoil with her in 



292 Some Colonial Homesteads 

the shape of furniture, jewelry, bric-a-brac, 
laces, etc., leaving- her husband in France to 
retrieve their shattered fortunes in his own time 
and way. 

Fort Washington was hers in her own rii^ht. 
She forthwith bestowed herself and her appurte- 
nances therein, and the New England thrifti- 
ness came valiantly to the front. One of the 
many souvenirs, treasured by those nearest of 
kin and in heart to her, is a pamphlet bearing 
this inscription : 

" Catai.ogue 

OF 

Original Paintings, 

FROM 

Italian, Duich, Flemish and French Masters, 

Of the Ancient and Modern Times. 

Selected hv ihe Best Judges From Eminent 

Galleries in Europe 

and intended for 

Private Gallery in America, 

To HE sold at Auction 

ON the 24'TH April — 1821, at to o'clock A. M. 

At Madam Jumel's Mansion house 

Harlem Heights 

Toi;ether WITH the Splendid Furniture of the 

House, 

By 

Claude G. Fontaine, Aitcttoneer." 



The Jumel Mansion 293 

The contents of drawing-room, hall, tea- 
room, dining-room, blue, red, yellow, and green 
rooms, are named in circumstantial detail, each 
under the proper head and in dignified, yet at- 
tractive terms. The auction was business, not 
sentiment, and part of a well-concerted plan. 
The mistress of the mansion meant to get 
money. Money, and much of it, was locked 
up in such furniture as adorned few other 
American homes. 

Greatly to the satisfaction of her heirs, and 
the latter-day lovers of historical relics, she 
never cast down before undiscriminating bid- 
ders the choicest of her gleanings over seas. 

" At the death of Count Henri Tasher de la 
Pagerie, in 18 16, his widow, being in strait- 
ened circumstances, sold the furniture and jew- 
els of Napoleon and Josephine to Monsieur and 
Madame Jumel for the sum of twenty-five 
thousand dollars " — is an authentic memoran- 
dum of the interesting transfer of priceless 
valuables. 

When the dismantled mansion was refur- 
nished for the residence of Monsieur and 
Madame, eight chairs that had belonged to the 
First Consul in 1800; a table, the marble top 
of which Napoleon had brought from Egypt ; a 



294 Some Colonial Homesteads 

clock used by him in the Tuileries ; a chande- 
lier that was his gift to Moreau ; tapestries and 
paintings collected by Josephine and himself ; 
a complete set of drawing-room furniture that 
had belonged to Charles X ; a bedstead of ex- 
quisite workmanship on which the first Consul 
slept for months ; his army chest ; his chess- 
board, — on which his fugitive nephew was, in 
time to come, to play daily a game with Ma- 
dame Jumel with the ivory pieces designed by 
the greater uncle, each wearing the Napoleonic 
cocked hat, — and scores of other precious pos- 
sessions before which the privileged visitor of 
to-day lingers with gloating eyes — took the 
place of " beds, tables, and candle-sticks " that 
had meant money and brought it. Thus ap- 
pointed, rooms and halls represented times 
and destinies, the uprising and the downfall of 
nations. As a whole, they were the expression 
of the deepened and enriched nature of the 
woman who dwelt among, and In them. 

The work so bravely begun in the public 
auction, was carried on as bravely. She farmed 
the large estate diligently and with profit ; her 
investments in lands and stocks were judicious ; 
her economies were Ingenious. Her husband's 
absence was a valid excuse for absentlngr h^r- 



The Jumel Mansion 295 

self from the gay scenes she had formerly 
adorned, but cool common sense and a single 
eye to business were better reasons to the 
practical side of her for avoiding the expenses 
which a contrary course would have entailed. 
She was making and saving money now, and 
had no leisure for costly frivolities. The pol- 
icy of separation and work that had one and 
the same end was essentially French. Neither 
wavered in his or her lot until, in 1828, M. Ju- 
mel returned to America and to his admirable 
partner, and they began together to enjoy 
what had grown, by their united efforts, into 
"an elegant competency." 

M. Jumel was a strikingly handsome man, 
and retained to the last the personal charms 
that were signal in the prime of his manhood. 
His step, at seventy, was light and quick, he 
carried his head high, and his back was as flat 
as a trooper's. As a waltzer, the distingue 
septuagenarian was openly preferred by his 
fair partners to any of the younger gallants. 
The promise of many years of life and pleas- 
ure was before him when he was thrown from 
his carriage. May 22, 1832, and fatally injured. 

We have no record of Madame's deportment 
when news of the accident was brought to her. 



29^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

or how she bore" the sight of the gallant old 
Frenchman's sufferings for the next week, and 
the death that ended them. His remains lie 
buried in the cemetery of old St. Patrick's 
Church in Mott Street. Although his wife 
was a member of the Episcopal Church he re- 
mained, all his life, a devout Roman Catholic. 

She takes the stage again in 1833, the cholera 
year in New York and the vicinity. To avoid 
the chances of infection she planned a tour up 
the river as far as Saratoga, already famed for 
its waters. Needing legal advice in the trans- 
fer of certain properties, she drove one day 
into town and down to Reade Street where 
she alighted at the office of Aaron Burr. 

The duel between Hamilton and Burr was 
fought July 1 1, 1804, the very year of Madame 
Jumel's marriage. On May 22, 1807, Aaron 
Burr was tried for treason in Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, with John Marshall, Chief-Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, on the 
bench — " a tall, slender man in his fifty-second 
year, with a majestic head, and eyes the finest 
ever seen except Burr's, large, black and bril- 
liant beyond expression. It was often remarked, 
during the trial, that two such pairs of eyes had 
never looked into one another before." 




397 



AARON BURR. 



The Jumel Mansion 299 

Judge and prisoner thus confronted one 
another for six months, and Burr was acquit- 
ted, free in name, but a ruined outcast, — a 
man without a country. In June, 1808, he 
sailed for England under an assumed name. 
In 1812, a paragraph in a New York paper an- 
nounced that Aaron Burr had returned to the 
city and had resumed the practice of law in 
Nassau Street. 

This summary of dates will account for the 
statement confidently maintained to be the 
truth by one who has a better right than any- 
body else living to be conversant with the facts 
of the case — that Madame Jumel had never 
met, or even seen, Colonel Burr, until the day 
of her visit to Reade Street. She knew him, 
by reputation, as an able lawyer and successful 
financier, and she needed legal advice in the 
settlement of M. Jumel's estate. In talking 
over the interview with a confidante when time 
had made her an impartial critic of her own 
actions, she said that he fascinated her from 
the moment he opened the office door to wel- 
come her, yet, that he " inspired her with some- 
thing like dread." The profound respect with 
which he hearkened to her story, the delicate 
flavoring of deference he contrived to infuse 



300 Some Colonial Homesteads 

into professional counsel, and which made the 
talk a conference of two keen intellects, not 
the visit of a client to her adviser, were incense 
yet more agreeable to the woman of affairs. 
When he handed her into her chariot, and 
stood with uncovered head upon the pavement 
until she drove away, the first step that counts 
for more than the hundred that follow, had 
been taken. 

She was not an impressible novice, and her 
projected journey was made at the appointed 
time without seeim^ Colonel Burr agfain. In 
company with her adopted daughter, she 
travelled by easy stages as far as Ballston, 
where she sentimentalized, still leisurely, over 
reminiscences of a former visit to the future 
Spa, when M. Jumel was with her, and they 
travelled in their chariot-and-four, with other 
four horses as relays. After a brief stay in 
Ballston they went to Saratoga. Before she 
alighted from her carriage she was pleased with 
a hotel she chanced to espy, and, within ten 
minutes after her arrival, bought it with the 
furniture as a speculation. 

When the city was cleansed of pestilence by 
October frosts, Madame returned in fine health 
and spirits to the mansion on the Heights to 



The Jumel Mansion 301 

find that it had been entered by burglars while 
she was away. The place was far from civiliza- 
tion, she now appreciated, as for the first time, 
and lonely for the niece whose lively spirits 
craved the society of young and gay people. 
The drives in and out of town involved a need- 
less waste of time and strength, when she had 
such a press of business on her hands as now 
demanded her attention. She took a house 
in New York for the winter. 

Burr lived, at this time, in Jersey City, and 
his law office was at No. 23 Nassau Street. 
His business communications with Madame 
Jumel were carried on through a family con- 
nection of the lady, in whom the great lawyer 
became much Interested. Madame's representa- 
tive yielded gradually and almost against his 
will — for he " had heard all good and all evil 
of him " — to the marvellous magnetism which 
Burr exercised upon whomsoever he willed to 
win. Mutual liking developed Into a friend- 
ship which subsequent events never under- 
mined. 

" Come Into my office," said Burr to the 
ambitious law student. '* I can teach you more 
law In a year than you can learn In ten In the 
ordinary way." 



302 Some Colonial Homesteads 

He kept his word, and he kept his hold 
upon his pupil's affectionate veneration. Burr 
may have foreseen the day in which he could 
make good use of the influence he gained. It 
is more likely that he befriended a promising 
young fellow because he was fond of him. 
Youth, when coupled with talent, always at- 
tracted him, and since the tragic death of the 
daughter whom he idolized his heart had a ten- 
der place in it for the young. His biography 
abounds with instances that prove this. He 
was now a successful lawyer, but he was a 
marked and, at heart, a lonely man. The 
genuine devotion of the student, his rapid 
acquisition of knowledge under his chiefs tui- 
tion, his pleasing person and manners, made 
sunshine in the darkly shadowed life. 

" The young man went home to Madame 
Jumel only to extol and glorify Colonel Burr." 

She was fond of the eulogist, who was, by 
now, an inmate of her house, and graciously 
acceded to his sucrorestion that the friend to 
whom he owed so much should be invited to 
call upon and be thanked by her. She did 
nothing by halves, and now, as upon a hun- 
dred other occasions, the fulfilment outran the 
request and the promise. Burr was no longer 



The Jumel Mansion 303 

prominent in fashionable society. Born with 
all the elements of success, and with the power 
of marshalling these to brilliant advantage, he 
was a conspicuous failure, and he knew it. 

To quote from the reminiscences of one who 
recollected him as he was at seventy-eight : 

" He had all the air of a gentleman of the old school, 
— was respectful, self-possessed and bland, but never 
familiar. He had seen a hundred men, morally as un- 
scrupulous as himself, more lucky for some reason or 
other, than himself. He was down ; he was old. He 
awaited his fate with Spartan calmness, knowing that not 
a tear would fall when he should be put under the sod." 

This was the guest (or so she believed) in 
whose honor Madame Jumel gave a dinner- 
party that was spoken of as '' a grand banquet." 
He more than justified the honor she had done 
him. The courtier and witty man of fashion 
of former days awoke within him, as the war- 
rior starts up at the reveilld. He was the star 
of the feast, and captivated even his enemies. 

When the hostess Informed him, at the 
proper moment, that he was to take her In to 
dinner, he bowed with inimitable grace : 

" Madame ! I offer you my hand. You 
have long had my heart." 

Florid flattery was depreciated currency 



304 Some Colonial Homesteads 

when so much was in circulation. The speech 
passed for nothing with those who heard it. It 
was Burr's way, and Madame's smiling ac- 
knowledgment of the tribute to her charms 
meant even less, if that were possible. The 
declaration did not commit him to the duty of 
the frequent calls in town, and at her country- 
house, that followed upon her removal to her 
old quarters in the spring. 

It is probable that the offer of marriage 
which he made in the leafy month of June, 
was entirely unexpected b)' the charming- 
widow, for her negative was as prompt and 
firm as if the nameless dread that had been 
the bitter tincture in the fascination of that first 
interview had driven out all thought of the 
sweetness. The wooer took the rebuff gal- 
lantly, and in a few weeks, renewed the pro- 
posal. The second "No " was uttered more 
gently, and he pressed the suit without the 
loss of a moment, or an inch of vantage- 
ground. She did not yield a half-inch in pro- 
testation that she could never reconsider her 
decision, yet as he took his leave, he said in 
his finest manner : 

" I shall call again " — naming a date — " and 
bring a clergyman with me." 



The Jumel Mansion 30 



J^D 



Punctual to the day and the hour of the 
afternoon he had set, Colonel Burr drove out 
to the Jumel House in his own gig, stepped 
out jauntily and assisted his companion to 
alight. This was David Bogart, D.D., of the 
Reformed Dutch Church, who just forty-nine 
years before, had married Aaron Burr to 
another rich widow, Theodosia Provost/ The 
gentlemen were admitted by a footman, and 
then began a negotiation so extraordinary that 
the whole performance has been rejected as 
mythical, by many who have heard the story. 
Certain of Burr's biographers have passed 
over his second marriage in silence ; others 
have broadly hinted that the ceremony was 
dispensed with altogether in the union of the 
heiress with the bridegroom who had counted 
his seventy-eighth winter. 

' Mrs, Provost was ten years (jider than Burr, not handsome, but 
singularly pleasing in manner, accomplished and highly educated. 
He always declared that "she was without a peer among all the 
women he had known." She died in 1794. 



XIII 



THE JUMEL MANSION 
(WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CITY) 

( Concluded ) 

IN writing of what was not the least surpris- 
ing of the events that made historic the 
mansion crowning Washington Heights, I 
shall consult data supplied by the nearest liv- 
ing relatives of Madame Jumel. If direct and 
authentic information were lacking, I should 
refrain from anything more than a passing 
allusion to the sudden nuptials and the rup- 
ture of the ill-advised bonds. 

It was an episode, but an important one, 
in a life that was all dramatic, from the hour 
that saw beautiful Eliza Bowen the bride of 
her mature and opulent suitor, to that in which 
the twice-widowed woman of ninety, majestic 
and still beautiful, lay in her coffin in the Fort 

306 



The Jumel Mansion 307 

Washington " tea-room," and her decease was 
noted as the removal of a social landmark. 

In spite of Colonel Burr's parting warning, 
Madame was totally unprepared for the appa- 
rition of an expectant bridegroom, while the 
message transmitted to her through their com- 
mon favorite, the law student, to the effect that 
Colonel Burr would wait downstairs until she 
was ready to be married, routed even her 
matchless self-possession. To complicate the 
embarrassments of the position, her adopted 
daughter threw all her influence upon the side 
of the resolute suitor. The scene that ensued, 
as described by one who had it from an eye- 
witness, would have been absurd had it been 
less distressing. Madame was now in her 
fifty-seventh year, but retained her fine figure 
and noble carriage, with many vestiges of her 
remarkable beauty. Her complexion was that 
of a girl, her blue eyes were unfaded, her feat- 
ures mobile, and in expression exceedingly 
winning. Hers was a warm, deep heart, and 
the dearest thinofs on earth to her were the 
two young creatures who knelt, one on each 
side of her, and pleaded Burr's cause, as she 
sat, bewildered and protesting, in her chair. 
While the young man praised him who, un- 



o 



08 Some Colonial Homesteads 



cler her intiuence, would regain his lost posi- 
tion in society and rise to yet loftier eminence 
in the profession in which he excelled, the 
beloved niece entreated her to consider what 
good would come to the whole household if 
such a head were given to it. Fort Washing- 
ton w^as a dear and lovely home, but the aunt 
could not live there alone, especially after the 
burglary, and the)' — the pleaders — could not 
be always with her. What a comfort it would 
be to them to be assured of her safety and 
happiness in the keeping of the gallant gen- 
tleman who was as brave as he was fascinat- 
ing ! The petitioners had suffered more than 
they had allowed her to guess in seeing her 
bowed almost to breaking by the burden of 
business anxieties. The relief they would ex- 
perience were these laid from her dear shoul- 
ders upon her adviser's ought to count for 
something In her consideration of Colonel 
Burr's suit. 

And so on, and so on, with coaxings, argu- 
ments, and caresses, until the balance of the 
cool head was overthrown by the warm heart. 
The passionate exclamation with which she 
finally drew her adopted child's head to her 
bosom showed this, and mieht have been a 



The Jumel Mansion 311 

check upon the impetuous advocates, had 
their partisanship been less warm : 

" Then — I will sacrifice my wishes for your 
sakes ! " 

Before she could qualify the partial pledge, 
the niece summoned Madame's maid, and her- 
self ran to a wardrobe for the wedding-gown. 
It was of lavender silk, softened by the rich laces 
in which Madame was a famous connoisseur. 

Colonel Burr and Doctor Bogart had been 
in the house for an hour and a half when the 
stately figure, attended by the young relatives, 
descended the staircase. The spacious land- 
ings and easy grades afforded ample opportu- 
nity for a good view of the group from below. 
Eight servants, who had caught the news of 
the impending event, were on the lookout, 
peering in at open doors and windows, and 
saw the bridegroom, with the alert grace of a 
man of one third of his years, come forward 
to receive Madame at the stair-foot. In his 
prime Burr was the handsomest, as he was the 
most brilliant, man of his generation. His 
black eyes never lost their flashing lights, 
or his voice Its music. His smile was radi- 
antly sweet ; his manner the perfection of 
gracious courtesy. He was probably not the 



312 Some Colonial Homesteads 

least *' in love " with the woman he now held 
by the hand, but his feigned ardor was with- 
out spot or blemish to the most critical of the 
group that saw the twain made one in the 
name of the Church and Heaven. 

The two kinspeople to whose fond persua- 
sions Madame had yielded her better judg- 
ment, "stood up" with the elderly couple. 
The ceremony was performed in the room at 
the left of the entrance-hall, known in the 
Jumels' time as '' the tea-room." It was the 
favorite parlor of Monsieur and of Madame 
Jumel. There were no witnesses of the 
strange scene enacted there besides the two 
attendants I have mentioned and the gaping, 
awe-stricken servants clustered without. 

Madame's flutter of nerves subsided before 
the benediction was pronounced. As the ur- 
bane hostess she ordered the wedding-feast to 
be prepared and served, and made clergyman 
and guests welcome to it. The burglars had 
not rifled the wine-vault. There were bins 
and bottles there thick with the dust and cob- 
webs of fifty years, and the late master of the 
mansion had been a noted authority upon 
wines. No choicer vintage was served in 
these United States than that in which the 



The Jumel Mansion 313 

health and happiness of the wedded pair were 
pledged that evening. 

A family joke, led on and relishfully enjoyed 
by Colonel Burr, was that the officiating do- 
minie, underrating the potency of the Jumel 
wines, became, as Burr put it, " very jolly," 
before the party of five left the table. Ad- 
mitting this, we assume that Madame's coach- 
man was detailed to occupy the driver's seat 
in the Burr gig on the late return to town. 

The roads were rough, but not dark, for the 
moon was at the full. This we know from the 
fact that it was eclipsed during the evening. 
The wedding company watched the phenome- 
non from the portico, the newly-made husband 
and wife side by side. 

*' Madame ! " said Burr, taking her hand in 
gallant tenderness, as they stood thus, ** The 
Americans will fear me more than ever, now 
that two such brains as yours and mine are 
united." 

When the news of the marriage flew over 
the city the next day, there was astonishment 
in many homes, and in one such lamentation 
as Dido may have launched after her perfidi- 
ous lover. A woman, younger and more beau- 
tiful than the heiress for whom she was 



314 Some Colonial Homesteads 

forsaken, made no secret of her love and her 
desolation. And yEneas was on the inner 
verge of his eightieth year ! 

The wedding-tour was to Connecticut, of 
which State the bridegroom's nephew was then 
Governor. The cares of riches pursued them. 
A favorable opportunity for the sale of stocks 
and other securities belonging to Mrs. Burr 
was embraced by her as readily as if the honey- 
moon were not in its second quarter. But 
when the money — some tens of thousands of 
dollars — was counted out to her by the buyers, 
she bade them, with engaging confidence, give 
it to Colonel Burr. 

" My husband will, after this, manage my 
affairs." 

According to a rumor of the time. Burr car- 
ried the bills back to New York, sewed up 
securely in his several pockets — perhaps by 
the jewelled fingers of the over-trustful spouse. 

The scene changes with bewildering rapidity. 
Harlem was a long way from No. 23 Nassau 
Street, and Colonel Burr, when once in har- 
ness, was, as an acquaintance described him, 
''business incarnate." He absented himself 
for days at a time from the suburban mansion 
now that he had money by the ten thousand 



The Jumel Mansion 3^5 

to invest. A project for colonizing an im- 
mense tract of land in Texas was an irresisti- 
ble lure to his imagination. A quarter-century 
ago, he had burned his fingers to the bone 
(figuratively) with operations in the South- 
west. Nevertheless, they itched now to handle 
projects looking toward the possession of the 
goodly country. He bought up shares that 
would have doubled the sums expended had 
the bubble of Texas emigration solidified. 
Since it burst after the manner of its kind, he 
lost every cent with which his wife had en- 
trusted him at Hartford, and more besides. 

All this while the other brain he had taken 
into partnership was void of any knowledge 
of the reckless venture. Mrs. Burr — -whom 
people with difficulty left off addressing as 
" Madame " — might have been an illiterate 
housewife, just able to count up on her fingers 
the profits of butter and eggs sales, for all that 
she was told of the fate of her funds. Accus- 
tomed to compute interest and to negotiate 
loans, and conversant with the real estate 
market, she began to wonder what had become 
of the packages of bills that had padded out 
her manager's lean figure in their homeward 
journey. 



3i6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Her adopted son was commissioned to sound 
her husband on the subject. 

The smilin<^ eyes shone like diamonds as 
the answer was given : 

*' Please say to Mrs. Burr that this is not 
her affair. She has now a master to manage 
her business, and he intends to do it." 

That word, " master," left a scar that never 
healed. The blow was brutal, and brutality 
was a novel experience to the pet of fortune. 
She would not have been a woman of spirit 
had she not resented it, and she had spirit and 
temper in abundance. 

An altercation, bitter on one side, cool and 
keen as ice-needles on the other — followed ; 
then a hollow truce — another and yet another 
rupture, until the quiet-loving lord took to 
spending weeks, instead of days, in the Nassau 
Street office. The estrangement had lasted 
for several months when he had a slight stroke 
of paralysis that confined him to his bed. His 
wife, hearing of his illness, ordered her car- 
riage, sought him out in his comfortless lodg- 
ings and begged him, with tears in her eyes, 
to ''come home." Her servants lifted him 
into the chariot, and she took him to the house 
on the Heights. 



The Jumel Mansion 317 

He lay upon the red velvet sofa that had 
been Napoleon's (still preserved by Madame's 
relatives), in the great drawing--room in the rear 
of the mansion, for six weeks, in luxurious con- 
valescence. Mrs. Burr was his constant at- 
tendant. As he rallied from the seizure he was 
his old and best self in witty chat and gentle 
courtesy. The month and a half during which 
she nursed him back to health was the last 
glimpse of even comparative wedded happi- 
ness. Burr's speculations continued to be ill- 
judged or unfortunate. His wife objected 
strenuously to risking any more of her money. 
Not long after his return to city quarters, find- 
ing expostulations unavailing, she awoke to the 
imminence of the peril to the estate accumu- 
lated by M. Jumel and herself, at the cost of 
separation, self-denial, and unceasing diligence, 
and brought suit for a legal separation. 

While her complaint, dictated by her own 
lips, entreated that her husband might have no 
more control over her property, she played, 
with true French womanly art, upon his ruling 
weakness by naming " infidelity " as the founda- 
tion of her discontent. The accusation that 
the octogenarian was capable of kindling the 
passion of love in one woman's heart and jeal- 



o 



1 8 Some Colonial Homesteads 



ous\' in that of another, was a delicious tid-bit 
to the antique Lothario's vanity. He made a 
feint of opposition, but finally allowed the suit 
to go by default. He was once more master 
of his time and affections. Madame, who did 
not resume her former name and title until 
several years after Burr's death, reigned again 
the undisputed sovereign of her "mansion." 

The divorce suit dragged tardily on. So 
long as each party was unmolested by the other 
neither took especial interest in bringing it to 
a close. Burr was actually upon his death-bed 
when Mrs. Burr's agent hastened to Chancellor 
Ken^and obtained his signature to the decree 
in order that the divorcee might have control of 
her property. H is relatives could have claimed 
a share in the wife's estate. 

Aaron Burr breathed his last, September 14, 
1836, aged eighty years, seven months, and 
eight days. 

" The last audible word whispered by the 
dying man was the one, of all others in the 
language, the most familiar to his lips," ob- 
serves Parton. 

He had motioned to his attendant to remove 
his eye-glasses, and "fixing his eyes (brilliant 
to the last) upon the spectacles in her hand, he 



The Jumel Mansion 319 

faintly whispered 'Madame!' evidently mean- 
ing- that they were to be given to Madame, the 
friend of his last years." 

It was supposed that he referred to the host- 
ess in whose house he had passed the last two 
years of his life. She had superintended his 
removal to Port Richmond where he died, and 
in parting he had blessed her as his " last, best 
friend." 

When word was brought to the wife — whom 
he invariably addressed as " Madame " — that 
he had passed away from earth, she wept sadly 
and long. For nearly two years they had been 
strangers, never meeting in all that time, but 
she had grieved in hearing of his sufferings, 
and was overcome by the memory of the brief 
brightness of their early married life. She 
always defended him when his memory was as- 
sailed in her hearing. Insisting that he had a 
kind heart and noble impulses. 

" He was not himself at the last," she would 
say. " What wonder that he made many mis- 
takes and had many peculiarities ? Think how 
old he was and how many troubles he had had ! " 

The chronicle of the succeeding ten or fif- 
teen years is pleasant reading and unblotted 
by calamitous or disagreeable happenings. 



320 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Madame Jumel's name was the synonym of 
generosity, often more impulsive than judicious. 
The open-doored hospitality dispensed in her 
beautiful home was as lavish and inconsiderate 
as the rest of her giving. 

The many anecdotes that have come to us 
of this calmful period of her varied career are 
interesting, and some diverting. 

For example, that connected with a massive 
sofa-bed of solid mahogany, still in use, which 
stood in the drawing-room, and was often occu- 
pied overnight when the bed-chambers were 
full. One night after Mrs. Burr had gone up- 
stairs, a gentleman asked for a night's lodging 
at the door. He was out hunting, and, night 
coming on, he had lost his way. Every bed in 
the house was occupied and the petition was 
referred to the mistress. 

" Don't send him off," was her order. " Pull 
out the sofa, and let him sleep there, and see that 
he does not go to bed hungry. Leave plenty 
on the table for his breakfast. If he is huntino- 
he will be astir before anybody else is up." 

The wayfarer supped, slept well, arose be- 
fore the sun, and ate everything that had been 
left on the table for his morning meal. In 
departing, he gave the maid who had attended 



The Jumel Mansion 3-i 

him, a louis d'or and left his card, with thanks, 
for the hostess. It bore the name of Prince 
de Joinvllle, third son of Louis Philippe. 

Joseph Bonaparte, then resident at Borden- 
town, N. J., was a frequent visitor here be- 
tween 1819-30. One afternoon, as he sat on 
the portico with Madame, he repeated dreamily 
a French poem, which so pleased the listeners 
that they begged for an encore, and the 
adopted daughter of the home wrote It down 
from his lips. The opening lines were 

" O charmante couleur d'une verte prairie ! 
Tu repose les yeux et tu calmes le coeur ; 
Ton effet est celui de la tendre harmonic 
Qui plait a la nature et fait la douceur." 

The entire poem was written upon a wooden 
panel and affixed to the trunk of a tree that 
had shaded the speaker while he recited it. 
It remained there as a souvenir of the visit 
until the house passed out of the family. 

As has been said, Louis Napoleon was 
another guest whom the Jumels delighted to 
honor, even when his fortunes were at the 
lowest ebb, and he had accepted more than 
one loan from them. 

In 1852, at a ball given by him, as President 
of the French Republic, In the Salle des Mare- 



322 Some Colonial Homesteads . 

chaux, Madame Jumel was a conspicuous 
figure. She entered the ball-room upon the 
arm of Jerome Bonaparte. Her gown, still 
treasured in the family, was of gold-colored 
brocade, lavishly trimmed with black Maltese 
lace. She chaperoned on this occasion her 
grandniece, born at the Mansion, and always 
the object of her fondest love and care. The 
young lady, as she was fond of relating merrily 
in after years, danced three times that night 
with the son of Jerome Bonaparte, afterward 
Prince Napoleon and nick-named '' Plon-Plon." 
During this foreign tour — although, as her 
yellow visiting-cards testify, the American ma- 
tron still styled herself, " Madame, Vetive de 
Aaron Burr " — she began to be better known 
again as '* Madame Jumel," and retained the 
name for the rest of her days. While in 
Rome, she was persuaded by her relatives and 
friends to sit for the portrait that hung in the 
main hall of the Jumel mansion as long as her 
heirs lived there. She was strangely unwilling 
to pose for a likeness, repugnance that in- 
creased with her years. I say " strangely," 
for she could not have been ignorant that she 
retained to the last, beauty of a high order. 
The picture was painted by Alcide Ercole in 



The Jumel Mansion 323 

1854. She was, therefore, seventy-seven years 
old. The face that looks from the canvas 
might belong to a well-kept woman of fifty. 
The expression is sweet and benignant, the 
blue eyes are full and wistful. As she sits be- 
tween her grandnlece and grandnephew, she 
looks the embodiment of tender motherhood, 
althoucrh she never had a child of her own. 
Her satin gown is what the French name, 
^' gorge dc pigcoii'' in color, a rich, misty blue, 
otherwise indescribable. Precious laces, such 
as she delighted to collect and to wear, form 
the lappets of her cap, and droop over the 
shapely hands. The poise of the head is 
queenly, the effect of the whole is pure womanly, 
and exceedingly winning. Prince Torlonia, 
who was her banker and friend, insisted that 
she should be painted in a chair brought from 
his palace, and which had once belonged to a 
Pope, and took eager interest in the sittings. 

We have scores of tales of her beneficence 
to the needy, her loving-kindness to all who 
suffered, of her gift of one thousand dollars to 
famine-blighted Ireland in 1848, of larger and 
smaller donations, as opportunity was vouch- 
safed for the exercise of her too-eenerous dis- 
position. Letter after letter of regret and 



'? o 



24 Some Colonial Homesteads 

condolence was received when the ready ear 
was dull and the open hand was cold in her 
last sleep. Some are in French, some in Eng- 
lish. All tell the same story. One, from the 
widow of Audubon, begs to be allowed to look 
upon the face of her dear, dead friend. She 
died, as she had wished, in the " Napoleon 
bed," and in accordance with her expressed 
directions, her remains rested in the tea-room, 
during the last night she spent in the home 
that had been hers for fifty-five years. She 
died in the eighty-ninth year of her age. 

A white-haired Colonial Dame, placid in a 
vigorous old age, the venerable homestead 
looks down from her sunny seat on the hill-top 
over a scene where naught remains unchanged 
of what she beheld in Mary Morris's and 
Madame Jumel's day, except the broad river 
sweeping slowly to the sea. A mighty city 
has rushed up to her very feet. Of the vast 
estate nothing is left but the lawn, slopingr 
away from the building on four sides to as 
many streets and avenues. 

Those who would visit it are instructed to 
look for it " one block east of St. Nicholas 
Avenue, between i6oth and 162nd Streets." 

The present owner. General Ferdinand 



Portrait of Madame Jumel. 

From the original painting by Alcide Ercole. 



'I 



The Jumel Mansion 325 

Pinney Earle, has rechristened the mansion 
" Earle-Chff," and on May 22, 1897, a lawn- 
party was given '' under the auspices of the 
Washington Heights Chapter, D. A. R., of 
New York," for the benefit of the '' National 
Fund to build the Memorial Continental Hall 
at Washington, D. C." 

The hostess and her aides, in colonial cos- 
tumes and with powdered hair and faces, 
received the throng of guests in a marquee 
spread in front of the house ; refreshments 
were served from booths on the lawn, and the 
great, square cards of admission bore other 
attractive notices. To wit that. 

An Interesting Feature of the Celebration 
will be a loan Exhibition of Revolutionary 
Relics. 

And that 

A grand Lawn Concert will be given 
during the afternoon by a Military Band, ac- 
companied by voices from the Children of 
the American Revolution. 

There was music indoors also. Trained 
vocalists were grouped about a piano set in the 
open square of the hall made by the turns of 
the staircase, and a bright-faced girl swayed 
the conductor's baton, leanincr over a balustrade 



26 Some Colonial Homesteads 



1 



that once knew the familiar touch of fair hands 
which have been dust for a century and more. 
Fashionable folk strolled and chattered in the 
dining-room where Washington sat down to 
supper, sad-eyed and haggard, on the night of 
September 21, 1776, and in the tea-room, 
beloved by M. Jumel, in which Aaron Burr 
was married, and where Madame lay in state 
thirty-three years afterward. And one of the 
hundreds who came and went under the cloud- 
less sky of the perfect spring afternoon, strolled 
apart to a secluded nook of shrubbery to read 
and dream over this advertisement printed in 
the lower left-hand corner of the great, square 
blue card. 

''T^HE Members of Washington Heights 
1 Chapter, D.A.R., are thoroughly im- 
bued with the spirit of Washington and 
things and incidents pertaining to the Revo- 
lutionary period, and the proposed fete 
champetre is in honor of a visit to the 
celebrated house on Washington Heights, 
made by President Washington, accom- 
panied by Mrs, Washington, Vice-President 
and Mrs. John Adams, their son, John 
Quincy Adams ; Secretary of State and Mrs. 
Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War and 
Mrs. Knox, and Secretary of the Treasury, 
General Alexander and Mrs. Hamilton. . . 



XIV 



THE SMITH HOUSE AT SHARON, CONN. 



MR. HENRY SMITH and his wife and 
three sons, and two dauorhters, and 
three men-servants and two maid-servants 
. . . came from Norfolk, 
and settled in New Hing- 
ham, 1638." This is the 
record of the town clerk 
of Hingham, Massachus- 
etts. 

A family register gives 
the date (probably the 
correct one) of 1636 to 
the immigration aforesaid, 
and locates Rev. Henry 
Smith as the first pastor 
of the Wethersfield (Conn.) church, in 1638. 
Mr. Smith was, we learn furthermore, a Puritan 
in England, while his father and brother were 

327 




SMITH CREST. 



o 



28 Some Colonial Homesteads 



Royalists. He resigned home, fortune, and 
family for "freedom to worship God," and 
*' well-proved the terrors of the wilderness," on 
this side of the Atlantic. 

His son Ichabod was the father of Samuel, 
who became one of the first settlers of Suftield, 
Conn. While there, he married Jerusha, 
daughter of the celebrated Cotton Mather, 
D.D. Their son, Cotton Mather Smith, born 
in 1 73 1, was a graduate of Yale College in 
I 75 1, and in 1755, being twenty-four years of 
a^re, he was ordained to the work of the minis- 
try in Sharon, Conn., being the third pastor 
of the (then) Established Church In that place. 

His wife was Temperance Worthlngton, the 
granddaughter of Sir William W^orthlngton, 
one of Cromwell's colonels. The provisions 
of Rev. Cotton Mather Smith's call to his 
first and only charge are peculiar and inter- 
esting. 

"Town Meeting, Jan. 8, 1755. Voted, 
That a committee confer with Mr. Smith, and 
know which will be most acceptable to him, to 
have a larger settlement and a small salary, or 
a larger salary and a smaller settlement, and 
make report to this meeting." 

"Town Meeting, Jan. 15, 1755. Voted, 



The Smith House 329 

That we will give to said Mr. Smith 420 
ounces of silver or equivalent in old tenor 
Bills, for a settlement to be paid in three 
years after settlement. . . ." 

" Voted, That we will give to said Mr. Smith 
220 Spanish dollars, or an equivalent in old 
tenor Bills, for his yearly salary." 

Mr. Smith's acceptance of the call contains 
this clause : " As it will come heavy upon 
some, perhaps, to pay salary and settlement 
together, I have thought of releasing part of 
the payment of the salary for a time to be paid 
to me ao^ain. 

'' The first year I shall allow you out of the 
salary you have voted me, 40 dollars, the 2d 
30 dollars, the 3d year 15, the 4th year 20, to 
be repaid to me again, the 5th year 20 more, the 
6th year 20 more, and the 25 dollars that re- 
main, I am willing that the town shall keep 
'em for their own use." 

He discharged the duties of this pastorate 
for 52 years. He was distinguished for great 
eminence in learning, piety, and patriotism, 
and such gifts of heart, and mind, and person, 
as endeared him indissolubly to his people. 
The small-pox breaking out in Sharon while he 
was still comparatively a young man, he and 



3oO Some Colonial Homesteads 

Mrs. Smith separated themselves from family 
and home, and labored dilig^ently among their 
smitten flock until the pestilence subsided. 

His wife thus recounts a scene in the Sharon 
Meeting- House on the Sabbath morning 
chosen by Parson Smith for the improvement 
of the text — " Arise, O Loi^d, in Thine angej^ / 
lift up thyself because of mine enemies, and 
awake for me to the judgment Thou hast com- 
manded. " 

" Before the close of the last line of the 
hymn, a messenger with jingling spurs strode 
down the aisle and up the high pulpit stairs, 
where he told the news to my husband, who 
proclaimed in clear, ringing tones that the die 
had been cast, that blood had been shed, and 
there was no more choice between War and 
Slavery." 

Mr. Smith himself volunteered as chaplain 
to the 4th Connecticut regiment, commanded 
by Colonel Hinman. 

While at Ticonderoga with General Schuyler, 
he fell dangerously ill, and "Madam" Smith, 
'' being warned of God in a dream," undertook 
a journey of one hundred and fifty miles by 
forest and stream, to reach and nurse him. 
The thrilling narrative as told by herself has 



The Smith House 



OJ 



been arranged and edited by the graphic pen 
of her descendant, Miss Helen Evertson Smith, 
under the caption of Led by a Vision. I will 
not mar the remarkable recital by attempting 
to condense it here. 

At the date of this act of wifely heroism 
(September, 1775), the parsonage stood near 
the " big Ash," which — to quote Madam Smith 
— " had once been the Council Tree of the 
warlike Wecrnag^nock Indians, and now shaded 
the door-steps of a minister of God, who was 
perhaps as warlike as his predecessors here, 
though always and only for Righteousness' 
sake." 

The foundations of the laro^e stone house to 
which the family subsequently removed, were 
then risino^ above the o^round within a stone's 
throw of the " big Ash." They were laid, and 
the dwelling completed by Dr. Simeon Smith, 
a younger and wealthy brother of the warlike 
pastor. 

Rev. John Cotton Smith, D.D., the distin- 
guished rector of the Church of the Ascension, 
New York, was a great-grandson of the Sharon 
divine. Rev. Roland Cotton Smith, the assis- 
tant of the late Phillips Brooks of Boston, is a 
great-great-grandson and the possessor of the 



oo- 



Some Colonial Homesteads 



chair in which his honored ancestor sat to write 
his sermons. His desk remains in the old 
homestead. 

In July, 1770, Whitefield preached in the 
Sharon meeting-house, the influence of Parson 
Smith having prevailed against the scruples of 
those who would have barred out an itinerant 
from the pulpit. The catholic Congregation- 
alist also opened wide the doors of his home to 
his English brother, and Madam Smith nursed 
him tenderly through an alarming attack of 
asthma, sitting up with him, as did her hus- 
band, all of the night preceding his celebrated 
discourse in their church. 

He died two months later, in Newburyport, 
Mass. 

John Cotton Smith, the son of Cotton 
Mather Smith and the " beautiful daughter of 
Rev. William Worthington of Saybrook," was 
a striking figure in a day when there were 
giants in the land. He was a member of the 
Connecticut Council, twice speaker of the Con- 
necticut House of Representatives ; three times 
elected to Congress ; Tudofe of the Connecticut 
Superior Court; Lieutenant-Governor and 
Governor from 181 2 to 181 7, and the last Gov- 
ernor under the Charter of Charles H. 



The Smith House 



" To these herediments — qualities transmitted by his 
distinguished parents — he added rare gifts," writes the his- 
torian of his native State. " A handsome person, features 
classically beautiful ; natural gracefulness, ready wit and 
culture, ... a model of the Christian gentleman. 

"Without mingling much in debate he presided over 
it, and ruled it at a time when John Randolph, Otis,, 
Grisvvold, Lee 
and Pinckney 
were participat- 
ors in it, and 
were willing to 
submit to the 
justice of his 
decisions, and 
free to acknowl- 
edge his superi- 
ority overall his 
compeers in the 
sagacity and ad- 
dress that en- 
abled him to 
avoid the gath- 
ering storm, and 

the lightness and elegant ease with which he rose upon 
its crested waves." 

He resigned his seat in Congress in 1806, 
on account of his father's decHning health. 
The Rev. Cotton Mather Smith died Novem- / 
her 27 of that year, in the 76th year of his age^/ 
and 5 2d of his ministry. 




JOHN COTTON SMITH. 



334 Some Colonial Homesteads 

In 1817, his son, Governor Smith, retired 
from political life. He was now but fifty-two, 
in the prime of his glorious manhood, 

" the proprietor of a princely domain of nearly one 
thousand acres of land, most of it lying in the bosom of 
his native valley, every rod of which might be converted 
into a garden. . . . From his retirement until his 
death, a period of thirty years, he remained at home. 
Dividing his time between scholastic studies and the 
pursuits of agriculture, he lived the life of the Connecti- 
cut planter of the seventeenth century. His hospitable 
mansion was always thronged with refined and cultured 
guests." 

He was also the first President of the Con- 
necticut Bible Society, President of the 
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
Missions in 1826, and of the American Bible 
Society in 183 1. His Alma Mater, Yale, made 
him an LL. D. in 18 14, and the Royal Col- 
lege of Northern Antiquarians in Copenhagen, 
Denmark, a member of their illustrious band 
as late as 1836. 

Governor Smith died December 7, 1845, 
aged 80 years. His wife, Margaret Evertson, 
was descended from two distinguished Dutch 
admirals, Evertson and Van Blum. 

Their only child, William Mather Smith, 



1 



The Smith House 335 

married Helen Livingston, a daughter of 
Gilbert Robert Livingston of Tivoli. She was 
one of the most beautiful and accomplished 
women of her generation. 

Mr. Smith was, like his grandfather and his 
father, a graduate of Yale, and like them, 
eminent for piety, good works, and eloquence. 
While he was never an ordained clergyman, 
and lived the life of a man of letters and a 
wealthy country gentleman, he fulfilled the 
office of an evangelist in the highest and best 
sense of the term. Fearless In duty, active In 
all pious and benevolent enterprises, he was 
yet the peacemaker of his neighborhood, be- 
loved and quoted by high and low. His por- 
trait shows us a singularly noble and benign 
countenance ; his memory Is fragrant and 
blessed, as is that of the fair-faced woman who 
graced the old homestead from youth to old 
age. 

Their three sons were John Cotton, Robert 
Worthlngton, and Gilbert Livingston. 

The first, although a Yale graduate and a 
lawyer by profession, preferred to lead the 
life of a simple country gentleman, travelling 
much In foreign lands, but ever loving best his 
own. He was a man of dignified presence and 



33^ Some ColiMiial Homesteads 

many attractive qualities, and was a remarkably 
tine and persuasive orator. He was many 
times a member of the State Legislature, and 
for several years filled the post of U. S. Minis- 
ter to Bolivia. S. A. He died, unmarried, at 
the age of nearly seventy. 

The third in age, Gilbert Livingston, early 
evinced the talent and piety that had charac- 
terized the worthy line. He was prepared for 
the aiinistr}- at Princeton, and called to the 
pretty little church at Carmel. X. Y., but died 
of fever before his installation. 

Robert Worthington Smith, the second son. 
received his academic education at Williams 
College ; studied medicine, and took the de- 
gree of M. D., but never practised his profes- 
sion. The traditional beauty, with the moral 
and mental gifts of the race, found in him a 
superb exemplar. To literary tastes and 
thorough cultivation, he joined a certain cour- 
tesy of bearing, geniality of temperament, and 
warmth of heart that won and retained the 
affection of those who knew him best. Be- 
ginning with heroic Temperance Worthing- 
ton, the sons of the house were especially 
fortunate in the selection of wives. Dr. Smith 
proved the rule absolute when he wedded 



1 



The Smith House 339 

Gertrude L' Estrange Bolden, who, in the mild 
glory of a lovely old age, survived him until 
1894 to bless home and children. 

Three children gathered about her in the 
spring and summer time that throw wide the 
doors of the spacious homestead and clothe 
with beauty the environing grounds ; Mr. Gil- 
bert Livingston Smith, Miss Helen Evertson 
Smith, well and favorably known as a writer 
of strong prose and exquisite verse, and Mrs. 
Gertrude Geer. The family reside during the 
winter in New York. 

The house was built by a Genoese architect 
and workmen, brought across the seas for that 
purpose. They kept secret their method of 
mixinor the cement that holds the stones to- 
gether. It is as hard now as marble, and the 
rigors and damps of over one hundred New 
England winters have not disintegrated a 
morsel. The wing was begun some years before 
the Revolution, and the foundations were al- 
lowed to stand for several months " to season." 
vSo effectual was the process that not a line is 
*' out of plumb " ; each door and window hangs 
evenly ; not a sill or casing sags. 

It is a stately home for a stately race, and a 
history that has not a blot. Every room has 



340 Some Colonial Homesteads 

its legend. Upon the walls of the sitting-room 
are the portraits of the brave pastor and his 
faithful wife. His was painted for, and at the 
order of, his parishioners. 

" Who insisted that he should be painted in 
the act of preaching," said the gentle voice of 
" Our Lady of Peace." ''It was a pity, for he 
was really a handsome man, and possessed great 
dignity of manner." 

Echoing "the pity of it!" we turn to the- 
placid visage framed by the mob-cap, and seek 
in the gentle, serious eyes of Temperance 
Smith traces of the fire that enabled her to 
overbear erudite Dr. Bellamy's remonstrances- 
when he even intimated that she was arroofant 
in believinor '' that the Lord had condescended 
to erant visions " to her. 

" But I soon silenced him," she writes. 
'' First, by repeating my dream, and, second, 
by showing him pretty plainly that I was not 
beholden to him for his opinions or permission, 
but was going to set out directly we had break- 
fasted." 

The clear-cut face of their son. Governor 
John Cotton Smith, is between the portraits 
of the grand old couple. 

Near by is a mahogany lounge, broad and 




CORNER OF LIBRARY IN SMITH HOMESTEAD. 



The Smith House 343 

comfortable, brought from France in 1 796, as 
a bedstead for a student in Columbia College, 
David Codwise, a collateral kinsman. In a 
spirit that proved the relationship, he con- 
demned the couch as " altogether too luxuri- 
ous," and slept during the period of his tutelage 
on a plank laid upon two chairs. 

All the "plenishing" of the house is from 
ninety to two hundred years old, the more 
modern having been brought from her girl- 
hood's home by Mrs. Smith over eighty years 
ago. The drawing-room carpet was sent from 
Brussels in 1807, to Margaret Evertson, wife 
of Governor Smith. It is whole throughout, 
and the colors are clear and harmonious. So 
extraordinary is this immunity from darn and 
dimness that the story of the actual age of the 
venerable fabric seems Incredible to those ac- 
customed to the " often infirmities " of modern 
floor-coverings. 

The bookcase in this room was " brought 
over" by a Holland Evertson, in 1640. The 
valuable Venetian mirror belongs to a still ear- 
lier date. 

A superb silver tray, bearing the changed 
crest of Robert Livingston, with the motto 
*' Spero meliora'' adopted in commemoration 



344 Some Colonial Homesteads 

of his escape from shipwreck, is one of the 
Smith heirlooms, an inheritance through beau- 
tiful Helen Livingston. 

The kitchen chimney had, within thirty 
years, a throat ten feet wide by five high. 
Standing within it, Mrs. Smith's children used 
to peep up at the stars at night. The whole 
chimney is twelve feet square. 

In Miss H. E. Smith's charming tale. For 
Her Kiiio^s Sake, we read how a Ro)'alist girl, 
the ward of Madam Smith, hid two Hessian 
prisoners in the " smoke-room," made by a 
cavity of this chimney in the second story. 

The rear wall, where the kitchen wing joins 
the newer l:)uilding, is fifty inches thick. The 
kitchen is a spacious, delightful chamber, 
thirty-two feet long by twenty-eight wide. 

Passing the door of a quaintly beautiful bed- 
room, where a sampler map of the State of 
New York, wrou^^ht in faded silks, hanors over 
the mantel, and a mourning-piece of " a lady 
and urn " upon another wall ; where the four- 
poster w^ith carved uprights and head-board is 
hung with white dimity, as are the deep win- 
dows looking down through magnificent elms 
upon the extensive lawn and gardens, — we 
climb the stairs to the great garret. A large 



The Smith House 345 

round window, like an eye, is set in the gable ; 
the roof slopes above a vast space, where the 
townspeople used to congregate for dance, and 
speech-making, and church " entertainments," 
before a public hall was built. Treasures of 
antique furniture are here that leave to the 
wise in such matters no hope of keeping, for 
the fraction of a minute longer, that clause of 
the tenth commandment covering " anything 
that is thy neighbor's " ; and in the middle of 
the dusky spaciousness, a long, long table, 
over which is cast a white cloth. 

" Family papers ! all of them. vSome day I 
shall begin — in some years I may complete — 
the examination of them," says Miss vSmith, 
lifting a corner of what is to m(^, now that I 
know what is beneath, the sheet covering the 
face of the dead. 

Hampers, corded boxes, and trunks full of 
them ! The hopes, the dreads, the loves, the 
lives of nine generations of one blood and 
name. 



XV 

THE PIERCE HOUSE, IN DORCHESTER, 
MASSACHUSETTS 



IN 1630, the orood ship Mary ajid John, char- 
tered by the EngHsh company that had 
in charge the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony, 
brought to Boston a 
young man by the name 
of Robert Pierce. 

Professor J. M. Peirce 
of Harvard, says: "A 
\\\sA\ deorree of uniform- 
ity exists in the spelHng, 
as used by persons bear- 
ing the name in any one 
family connection." 
The branch which 
sprang from Robert Pierce has consistently, 
for nine generations, given the preference to 

34''> 




PIERCE CREST. 



The Pierce House 347 

the method of spelling the name which will be 
used in this paper, but as the very able " Peirce 
Genealogy " compiled by Frederick Clifton 
Peirce, of Rockford, Illinois, proves, the parent 
stock was the same/ 

" The first patent granted by the Council 
of Plymouth of land in New England was to 
John Pierce, of London, and his associates, 
dated June i, 1621. This was a roaming 
patent, granting 100 acres for each settler 
already transplanted and such as should be 
transported." 

Under this "roaming patent" Robert ** set- 
tled on what was called Pine Neck" — so runs 
the MS. genealogical record kept in the home- 
stead — " near the water." The cellar of his 
house was to be seen there until 1804. ^^ 
1640 he built (in Dorchester, Mass.) another 
dwellintr. " At that time Robert Pierce's 
house and the Minot house, on the adjoining 

' Colonel Peirce is also the com])iler of a curious and valuable vol- 
ume, giving the history of another wing of the family, under the 
interesting caption of " Fearce Genealogy, being the Record of the Pos- 
terity of Richard Pearce, an early inhabitant of Portsmouth, in Rhode 
Island, who came from England, and whose Genealogy is traced back 
to 972 ; with an Introduction of the Male Descendants of Josceline 
De Louvaine, the Second House of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, 
Barons Percy and Territorial Lords of Alnwick, Warkworth and 
Prudhoe Castles in the County of Northumberland, England." 



34^"^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

farm, were the only houses in this part of the 
country. The road from Boston to Plymouth 
was up Oak Avenue " (directly past Robert's 
door) "and near the old well, crossing Nepon- 
set River at a fording-place near the Granite 
Bridge. 

" Robert married Ann Greenway, daughter 
of one of the first settlers of Dorchester, gen- 
erally known as ' Goodman Greenway.'" 

Juhn Greenway, or, according to the bound- 
less license in the matter of orthography prev- 
alent at that date, Greanway, or Greenaway, 
was a fellow-passenger of Robert Pierce, and, 
it is supposed, was accompanied bv his whole 
family. Robert Pierce married his daughter 
just before, or just after the voyage to America. 

"Ann was born in England in 1591, and 
lived to the uncommon age of 104 years. She 
died December 31, 1695." 

Robert's death is thus set down : 

" Robert Pierce of ye greate lotts, died 
January 1 1, 1664. 

" The descendants of Robert of Dorchester 
have been men of substance, being industrious 
and frugal, and have held a respectable rank 
in society, having intermarried with many of 
the best families in Dorchester and vicinity." 



The Pierce House 351 

Thus a part of the quaint introduction to 
the family history made out by a descendant 
of the young EngHshman who was freeman of 
the town of Dorchester in May, 1642. Pains- 
taking research on both sides of the sea on 
the part of members of the family, and com- 
parison of old records and heraldic devices 
have brought to light some curious and interest- 
ing facts antedating Robert Pierce's voyage to 
the New World. These show the name to have 
been originally Percy, or Percie, and Robert of 
Dorchester to have been collaterally related 
to the Percys of Northumberland. Master 
George Percie, who won distinction for him- 
self and stability for John Smith's Virginian 
Colony, was a blood-relation. His name ap- 
pears again and again in the genealogical 
table, even down to the tenth generation of 
Robert's descendants. The tradition connect- 
ing the ancestry of the Dorchester freeholder 
with that of Harry Hotspur also avers that 
the line can be traced back to Godfrey of 
Bouillon. 

It is certain that among the effects brought 
from the old country in the Mary and John 
was the coat-of-arms, the crest of which is given 
on another page. A faded copy of great age 



352 Some Colonial Homesteads 

still hang-s in the old homestead in Oak Ave- 
nue, Dorchester. 

The American offshoots of the ancient stock 
were people of marked individuality from the 
date of their landing-. To the fruoalit\' and 
industry claimed for them by the writer of the 
MS. referred to, they added stern integrity, 
strong wills, bravery, and, like sparks struck 
from iron, fire of disposition and speech that 
kept alive in the memory of contemporaries 
the tale of the Hotspur blood. They had 
many children as a rule, brought them up 
with equal vigor and rigor, and lived long in 
the land they believed the Lord their God had 
given them. 

Here and there in the dry and dusty details 
of births, marriages, and deaths we run across 
an incident not without uK^aning to us. 

" Samuel, born 1676, died December 16, 
1698, a^tat 22, by the fall of a tree on Thomp- 
son's Island." 

" John Pierce " (in the third generation from 
Robert) " married Abigail Thompson, of Brain- 
tree, January 6, 1693. She was born Novem- 
ber 10, 1667, the daughter of Deacon Samuel, 
and granddaughter of Rev. William Thomp- 
son, of Braintree. He joined the Dorchester 



The Pierce House 353 

Church" (on Meeting- House Hill) ''March 
7, 1692, and died in consequence of a fall, 
January 27, 1744, a;tat 76. 

" He was a famous sportsman, and spent 
much of his time in killing wild fowl. It is 
said he kept an account of 30,000 brants he 
had killed." 

A story of this pious Nimrod, handed down 
through all the generations, forcibly illustrates 
the Sabbatarian customs of his times and 
locality and the stubborn literalism which dis- 
tinguished the Pierces above their neighbors 
in whatever pertained to moral and religious 
observances. Few men shaved oftener than 
once a week in that primitive region. The 
Sabbath began with the going down of the 
sun on Saturday. It was John Pierce's habit 
to shave in front of a mirror set near a west- 
ern window, and to begin the operation half 
an hour before sunset. On one particular 
Saturday afternoon the methodical Puritan 
set about the hebdomadal task later than 
usual. Perhaps the '' brants " had lured him 
far afield, or afen, or the work of paying off 
the laborers in " ye greate lotts " had hindered 
him. As the upper rim of the sun sank below 
the horizon line he had shaved just half of his 



354 Some Colonial Homesteads 

face. Without a word he wiped his razor, 
returned it to the case, and laid it aside with 
brush and strap. The next day Abigail Pierce 
and her children sat meekly in the family pew 
in the old meeting-house with the imperturba- 
ble master of the flock, one side of whose face 
bristled with a week's stubble, while the other 
was cleanly shorn, as befitted the day and 
place. 

He left seven children when he was gathered 
to his fathers in i 744 ; and eight had died in 
infancy. Two of the seven married twice. 
His grandson, Samuel, born March 25, 1739, 
was over thirty years of age, and married, at 
the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. On 
one and the same day he received a commission 
as Captain from the Crown, and of a Colonelcy 
from the Continental Congress. He accepted 
the latter, and served with distinction through- 
out the war. His wife remained at home, 
overseeine the farm and four little children 
durinor his absence. His letters to her from 

o 

Morristown, N. J., and other places of encamp- 
ment are penned in a neat, compact hand that 
gives no token of the salient characteristics of 
the writer. The same chirography appears in 
the family record of an old Bible in the posses- 



The Pierce House 355 

sion of a descendant. From this we learn that 
his father Samuel, with dogged " perseverance " 
which may, or may not have been " of the 
saints," named three sons after himself. 

''Samuel Pierce, their yfr^/, born January 
30, 1734, died April 5, 1736. 

" Second Samuel Pierce, born September 5, 
1737, died February 25, 1738. 

" Third Samuel Pierce " (the scribe himself), 
*' born March 25, 1739." 

The hand of his grandson-namesake, Samuel 
Pierce Hawes, of Richmond, Virginia, added 
to this last entry, '' Died June 4, 18 15." 

At the end of the Old Testament we find In 
the minute, distinct lettering which would seem 
to have been habitual with him : — " Samnel 
Pierce began the Bible March the 6th, i 775. 

''Samuel Pierce. I Red out the Bible from 
the First of Feb., i 772, /^? the fourth of March, 
1775, which was three years and one nuvith and 
four days!' 

To " read out " was to read aloud, and, in 
this instance, was done at morning and evening 
worship. We may be sure, too, from what we 
know of him and the custom of the day, that 
he omitted not one " begat," or " slept with his 
fathers " of First or Second Chronicles, and 



35^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

did not slur over a pomegranate, bell or knop 
of Exodus. He kept a sharp eye upon the 
sacred penmen, meanwhile, as is evinced by a 
marginal entry against 2 Kings, xix. 

" The 2)7 Cliaptr of Isaiah is much like this. 
S. P., 1772." 

And having " Red out " the inspired volume 
on March 4th, he dutifully began it again on 
March 5th. 

Of all the patriarchs of the ten generations 
whose biographies are outlined in the yellow- 
ing pages before me, this Samuel Pierce stands 
out most prominently. 

He addressed his gentle wife in the epistles 
preserved as mementoes of his campaigns, as 
" Honored Madam," yet I have talked with 
those who recollected the imperious sway with 
which he ordered his erowinof household. 

After the manner of his forefathers, he 
farmed his patrimonial acres, now grown valua- 
ble by reason of proximity to Boston. His 
habits were simple and methodical, his rules of 
life and conduct few and inflexible ; in domes- 
tic discipline he was the strictest of drill-ser- 
geants. At twelve o'clock every day he came 
home to dinner, and, in passing the corner of 
the kitchen he would cough loudly and mean- 



The Pierce House 357 

ingly. From that moment until his august 
shadow fell on the same spot in the path to 
the fields after the noonday repast, not one of 
the half-dozen children who sat down tri-daily 
to the table with their parents dared to utter a 
word. 

Yet he loved his offspring in his way and 
was fond of them ; neither niggardly nor churl- 
ish in his provision for them. Two of his 
daughters outlived infancy, and grew into tall, 
handsome women. Elizabeth was twenty-two, 
Ann but sixteen, when they went together to 
a commencement at Harvard, and, as the 
younger sister confessed to a granddaughter 
sixty years later, " received as much attention 
as any other young women present. We were 
Squire Pierce's daughters, you see," she modi- 
fied the statement by saying. " Our father 
was much thought of in the neighborhood." 

Then, opening a drawer, she showed the 
visitor the "petticoat" of the gown she wore 
that day. The sisters were dressed alike in 
slips of blue silk, trimmed with pearl-colored 
satin, and hats to match. 

Ann made a runaway match at seventeen, 
and we find her a few years later a widow with 
an only child, keeping house for her father. 



35^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

The stern fibre of her nature was an inherit- 
ance from the grim despot whose coming had 
quelled her childish mirth. She brought up 
her fatherless boy after the strait, strict 
methods which had not crushed her haughty 
spirit. They were a high-handed, high-tem- 
pered race who were born, lived, and died in 
the old house which rambled beyond the orig- 
inal foundations as means and families in- 
creased. The riorht end of the buildincr, as it 
now stands, was erected by Colonel Samuel at 
the time of his marriage with Elizabeth How. 
Up to that date there stood in the dining- 
room an oaken table, so huge that the bride- 
groom-expectant resolved to get it out of his 
way. It could not be carried up the narrow 
stairs, so when the gable was opened to pre- 
pare for the projected addition, he had the 
cumbrous article swung up into the attic and 
built it in. It stood in the end garret for over 
a hundred years, and was finally removed by 
sawing it apart and taking it away piece-meal. 
In the same garret was a trap-door leading 
into a secret chamber, built for protection 
against the Indians, a hiding-place of such in- 
genious contrivance that, now that the flooring 
has been laid solidly above it, one examines 



The Pierce House 361 

the lower story in vain for trace of the room, 
which is at least six feet square. 

The frame of the house is of Massachusetts 
black oak, grown in *' ye greate lotts." The 
beams, twelve by fourteen inches thick, are 
pinned together like the ribs of a ship, and 
cross heavily the low-browed wainscoted 
rooms. In the spacious parlor built by Colo- 
nel Samuel, there are nine doors. 

Forty years ago, the big fireplace in the 
family sitting-room was altered to suit modern 
needs, and the beam running across the throat 
of the chimney taken out. It was as black as 
ebony and as hard as lignum vitae. Cups, and 
other small articles were turned out of the 
wood as souvenirs, and distributed in the fam- 
ily. The removal of the ancient timber re- 
vealed a cavity in the masonry above, left by 
taking out one brick. Within it, set carefully 
side by side, was a pair of dainty satin slippers, 
the knots of ribbon on the insteps as perfect 
as when they were hidden away there — per- 
haps two hundred years before. 

Did Ann Greenway bring them from Eng- 
land, and devise the queer receptacle to secure 
the cherished bit of finery from Indian "sneak 
thieves " ? Or did Mary inherit them and con- 



362 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ceal them from envious neighbors ? Did one 
of the Abigails, or Sarahs, or Hannahs, or 
Marys, or Elizabeths, whose names are re- 
peated in successive generations, tuck the 
pretty foreign things into a hole in the wall 
for safe keeping on the eve of a journey or 
visit, and return to find that, while she was 
away, they had been unwittingly walled in and 
up, as irretrievably as Marmion's " injured 
Constance " in the monastery vault ? 

A funny, and a characteristic, little story has 
to do with the crack visible in the lower panel 
of the closet door at the left of the fireplace, 
in the middle parlor of the Pierce homestead. 
This was known two hundred years agone as 
"the gun-closet." In it, powder-horns and 
shot-pouches were slung upon hooks, and guns 
stood ready loaded for an Indian surprise- 
party, or the appearance of deer and wild fowl. 
Abigail Pierce, spouse of the mighty hunter 
John, one day locked the door and carried the 
key off in her pocket when she went on a visit 
to a neighbor, lest the children might get at 
the fire-arms in her absence. During the 
afternoon a great flock of wild geese flew low 
and straight toward the house, and the good 
man rushed in-doors for his fowling-piece. 



The Pierce House 365 

P^indini^ the closet locked, he promptly kicked 
out a panel, seized the gun and had his shot. 
The broken panel was duly replaced, but the 
scar left by the niast(;r's h(*roic treatment re- 
mains unto this day. 

" Action first, speech afterwards," was the 
watchword of those earlier {generations. 

Robert of Dorchester preserv(;d, as long^ as 
he liv('d, a ship-biscuit broui^ht from h^ngland 
by him in 1630. It is still treasured in the old 
house and is uncloubtc-dly th(! " ripest " bread 
in y\m(^rica. Hesich- it, in tJK! glass case made 
to krA',[) it in, li(;s a corn-cob, ns('d, for a gener- 
ation, in shelling corn by thc! first Samuel Pierce, 
who married Abigail Moscdey in 1 702. Other 
rt^lics are sacredly kcqjt und(T thc^ roof-tree 
which, for mon^ than two and a half centuries, 
has sh(dtered ownc-rs of the sam(t blood and 
name. Among them are a stand and chest of 
drawers brought over in th(- Mary and John \ a 
Malacca cane, silver-band(*d, with an ivory head; 
a tall clock, a desk, and a mirror with bevelled 
edges which may have formed part of the plen- 
ishing of Ann Greenway. We cannot help 
building a little romance in connection with the 
long voyage taken by Cioodman Greenway and 
his family, in company with young Robert. 



o 



66 Some Colonial Homesteads 



" For diverse frood causes and considerations 
me thereunto moving, and specially for the 
great love and fatherly affection that I bear 
unto my sonne-in-law Robert Pearse and Ann 
Pearse, my daughter — " is the preamble of the 
will which bequeaths to them a goodly estate. 

The will-literature of the race is unusually 
full and rich in suggestions of local history and 
character. I have before me the entire last 
wills and testaments of fixe of the Pierce name 
and lineage, all devising property in the direct 
line. The longest and most verbose of these 
are those of John ( 1743) and Colonel Samuel 
(1807). There are touches of piety and hu- 
man tenderness in Robert's (date of 1664) 
which move us to interest and sympathy with 
the old exile. Between the stipulation that a 
bequest of " thirty pounds shall bee payd 
within three years after my wife's decease in 
good current pay of New England," and the 
appointment of his executors, occurs this pas- 
sage : — " And now, my Dear Child, a ffather's 
Blessing I Bequeath unto you both & yours. 
Bee tender & Loving to your Mother, Loving 
and Kind one unto another. Stand up in your 
places for God and for His Ordinances while 
you live, then hee will bee for you & Bless you." 




367 



THE RIPEST BREAD IN AMERICA.' 



The Pierce House 369 

In my library stands an antique chair of 
soHd cherry, one of six imported by Colonel 
Samuel Pierce from Entrland at the time of 
his marriage in i 765. Others of the set were 
distributed among other and appreciative de- 
scendants, long before the taste for old family 
furniture waxed into a craze which encourages 
forgeries in cabinet-making. 

In front of the modest homestead is the well, 
dug in 1640, still yielding clear, cold, delicious 
water, believed by all of the blood to be the 
best in the world. In 1850 the last branch 
— full of leaves and acorns — fell on a windless 
day from the old oak that had shaded the well 
for two centuries. 

General E. W. Pierce quotes from Babson 
the description of a political meeting held in 
Gloucester, Mass., in 1806, when "the two 
parties struggled for the mastery through the 
day and amid darkness until half past ten at 
night. . . . The Democrats not unreason- 
ably expected success, as they had the influence 
of the Pierce family." 

His Chronicle adds: — "Indomitable perse- 
verance is a trait that marks their character in 
every department of life and has generally 
crowned their efforts with ultimate success." 



3/0 Some Colonial Homesteads 

President Franklin Pierce was of the same 
stock; also Hon. Benjamin Pierce, Librarian 
of Harvard University from 1826 to 1831 ; 
Hon. Oliver Pierce of Maine, obit, in 1849, ^-t 
84 ; Henry Pierce of Brookline, Mass. ; Hon. 
Andrew Pierce of Dover, N. H., obit. March 
5, 1875, ^t 90; Rev. John Pierce, D. D., of 
Brookline, Mass., obit. 1849, at 7^' Colonel 
Thomas Wentworth Pierce, President of the 
Galveston, Harrisbure, and San Antonio Rail- 
way ; — but a list of those of the name and 
blood who have borne well their part in church, 
commonwealth, and nation would weary writer 
and reader. 

The Pierces are a rugi^ed, indomitable race, 
physically, as is proved by a cursory examina- 
tion of the tables of births and deaths. Within 
a quarter-century, two Golden Weddings have 
been celebrated upon what remains of "ye 
greate lotts." The first was that of Mr. Lewis 
Pierce, who married Sarah Moseley in 1808. 
Mr. Pierce died July 4, 1871, at 85. The sec- 
ond, that of Mr. Lewis Francis Pierce, married 
to Melissa Withington, November 30, 1834, 
was commemorated November 30, 1884. 

By the clever management of those who lent 
loving hands to the task of preparing for the 




371 



THE QUEEN OF THE EVENING. 



The Pierce House 373 

second of these anniversaries, Mr. and Mrs. 
Pierce were kept in ignorance of the coming 
festivities until the <ruests beiran to arrive. The 
clan rallied from near and from far, bearing 
love-gifts and eager with loving congratula- 
tions and wishes. The night was clear and 
cold ; the hoar-frost crisped the turf as we trod 
upon it to muffle our approach. In the very 
heart of the pulsing brightness and warmth of 
the interior sat the queen of the evening in 
the beauty of serene old age. The pleasur- 
able excitement of the "surprise" flushed her 
cheeks and brightened her eyes, until we had a 
chastened vision of the bride who had been 
lifted over the worn threshold fifty years be- 
fore, to dwell in the home of her husband's 
forefathers all the days of hc-r blameless life. 

I doubt if, in an)- other of our Colonial 
Homesteads, two Golden Weddings have been 
celebrated in consecutive generations of one 
family, and that of a race which has inhabited 
the house without a break in the line ever since 
it was built, two hundred and fifty-odd years 
ago. 

Mr. L. F. Pierce died in 1888 at the age of 
eighty. The Boston Advertiser paid him this 
just tribute : 



374 Some Colonial Homesteads 

" Those traits of character which gained for Mr. Pierce 
the confidence and esteem of his townsmen in his public 
capacity, made him as friend and companion beloved by 
all who knew him intimately. His cheerful greeting and 
gracious reception in themselves repaid the visitor. In 
conversation he was never at loss for a humorous turn or 
fitting anecdote. Though making no ])retensions in a 
literary way, he was a reliable antiquarian, and his re- 
tentive memory was stored with facts of interest and 
value pertaining to the history of the town, which he 
took pleasure in relating. 

" During tlie war he visited with others in an official 
capacity the several comi)anies at the front, and was 
cordially received. 

" This service, though of the civil routine, may fitly be 
mentioned as in a degree identifying him with the patri- 
otic cause in this war, as his father, Lewis Pierce, had 
been in the war of 1812, and his grandfather. Col. 
Samuel Pierce, in that of the Revolution, both in the 
military service." 

His son, Mr. George Francis Pierce, resides 
in the house built by his father within the 
grounds of the old homestead, which Is now 
occupied by Mr. William Augustus Pierce. 




^^s 




WW 


P 




w^^^ 


^a 




%^i 


msi 



XVI 



THE *' PARSON WILLIAMS" HOUSE IN DEER- 
FIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 

ROBERT, ROXBURY, came from Nor- 
wich, in England, was admitted freeman 
in 1638, and is the common ancestor of the di- 
vines, civiHans, and warriors of this name who 
have honored the country of their birth." 

Thus ambles a clause of the introduction to 
the genealogical record of the " Family of 
Williams in America, more particularly of the 
Descendants of Robert Williams of Roxbury," 
prepared by Stephen W. Williams, M. D., A. M., 
'' Corresponding Memb. of the New England 
Historic. Genealog. Society of the National 
Institute . . . Hon. Memb. of the N. Y. Hist. 
Soc, Memb. elect of the Royal Society of 
Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen, Denmark, 
etc., etc." 

We read, furthermore, that the Williamses 
375 



3/6 Some Colonial Homesteads 



" form a large part of the principality of Wales, 
somewhat like the O's of Ireland and the Mac's 
of Scotland. . . . Some of the name in 
Wales trace their lineage as far back as Adam " 
— is a bit of pleasantry left, like a sprig of 
lavender, between the musty leaves. An ex- 
tract from the pedigree of Williams of Penrhyn 
is set down in pfrave sincerity. 

" This most ancient family of the principal- 
ity of Wales deduces its pedigree with singular 
perspicuity from Brutus, son of Sylvius Pos- 
thumius, son of Ascaneus, son of ^neas, which 
Brutus was the first king of this Island, and 
began to reign above iioo years before the 
birth of Christ." 

The Encyclopedia Aineri- 
caiia says, " the genealogy of 
Oliver Cromwell is traced 
to Richard Williams, who 
assumed the name of Crom- 
well from his maternal uncle, 
Thomas Cromwell, Secre- 
tary of State to Henry VIII 
and through William of 
Yevan, up to the barons of 
the eleventh century." 
In confirmation of the statement we are 




WILLIAMS CREST. 



The '^ Parson Williams" House 



J// 



informed that " in almost all their deeds and 
wills, the progeny of William of Yevan signed 
themselves ' Cromwell, alias Williams,' down 
to the reign of James the First." A list of the 
descendants of Robert of Roxbury who have 
been graduated from American colleges, dis- 
tinguished themselves in the Congress of the 
United States, in the learned professions, in 
literature and art, and in the mercantile world, 
would be a sort of directory of intellectual 
progress, financial prosperity, and political in- 
tegrity in the communities favored by their 
residence. This is not haphazard eulogy, but 
fact. William Williams of Connecticut signed 
the Declaration of Independence in 1776 al- 
though convinced in his own mind that the 
cause of the Colonists would not be successful. 

" ' I have done much to prosecute the contest,' he 
said with great cahiiness. ' And one thing I have done 
which the British will never pardon, — I have signed the 
Declaration of Independence. I shall be hung! And, to 
a brother legislator who congratulated himself that he had 
committed no overt act against the Crown — Mr. Williams 
replied, his eyes kindling as he spoke, — ' Then sir, you 
deserve to be hanged for not having done your duty.* " 

Colonel Ephraim Williams, scholar, traveller, 
and soldier, fell fighting bravely in an ambus- 



37^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

cade of French and Indians, September 8, 
1755, ''leaving in his will a liberal provision 
for a free school at Williamstown. On this 
foundation arose the College which was called 
after his name." 

The pages of the shabby volume before me 
are starred by noble names and worthy deeds, 
and still the story goes on. 

Among the multitude of heroes who quitted 
themselves like men in the battle of life, and 
the martyrs of whom this present world is not 
worthy, none made a braver fight or suffered 
more than John Williams, a descendant in the 
third generation from Robert of Roxbury, the 
founder of the cis-atlantic branch of the re- 
markable famih'. 

At the early age of nineteen he was gradu- 
ated from Harvard College, and three years 
afterward, in the spring of 1686, was installed 
as "the first minister of Deerfield, Massachu- 
setts." This was an English settlement situ- 
ated about thirty miles north of Agawam (now 
Springfield) just where the Deerfield River 
joins the Connecticut. Two thousand acres 
of land formerly (?) owned by the Pocomptuck 
Indians was deeded by the General Court of 
Massachusetts to a party of English emigrants 



The " Parson Williams " House 379 

in 1651. The village of Pocomptuck had no 
existence until twenty years later. Metacomet, 
the warlike son of Massassoit, better known 
to us as Kin^; Philip, succeeded his peaceful 
parent in 1662, and in 1675 began what he 
meant should be a w^ar of extermination of the 
pale-faced usurpers. The founders of the ham- 
let that was presenth' rechristened '' Deerfield " 
must have quoted often from the one Book 
they knew by heart, how, w4iile another town 
was in Ijuilding, " every one, with one of his 
hands wrought in the work, and with the other 
held a weapon." They were brave of heart w4io 
planned the undertaking while Metacomet's 
summons, like the roar of a wounded lion, was 
drawing into his train the remnants of scattered 
tribes from their hiding-places and marshalling 
them against the common foe. 

Our forefathers needed the Old Testament 
Scriptures — unrevised — and made much of 
them. When the chief man of the colony, his 
sword girded upon his thigh and his musket 
ready to his hand, read aloud to his work- 
men — 

'' Be ye not afraid of them. Remember the 
Lord which Is ereat and terrible, and fiorht for 
your brethren, your sons and your daughters, 



o 



80 Some Colonial Homesteads 



your wives, and your houses " — they listened 
as to an oracle given that day from heaven. 
If we would enter into the full and sympa- 
thetic comprehension of the narrative given in 
this chapter, we must bear these things con- 
tinually in mind. The mainspring of individ- 
ual and colonial emprise at that date was not 
so much patriotism as religion. Abraham did 
not believe more devoutly in the pledge — '' I 
will orive unto thee, and to thv seed after thee, 
the land wherein thou art a strancrer" — than 
the exile to whose inmost heart England was 
still "home," the earthly Paradise to which he 
must not look back while the dispossession of 
the Canaanite was bound upon his conscience, 
and Heaven Avas the reward of him that over- 
came. 

The infant settlement upon the very frontier 
of the colony was not five years old when an 
outgoing train of wagons, laden with grain 
and guarded by soldiers, was attacked by 
Indians at a brook that skirts the western 
foot-hills, and seventy men — "the flower of 
Essex County " — were killed. 

Eleven years later, the dauntless, because 
devout, settlers had a town, and as a town, 
voted to call Rev. John Williams to be their 



The " Parson Williams " House .s^i 



minister (the title "pastor" was not yet in 
vogue), upon a salary of " sixty pounds a year 
for the present, and, four or five years after 
this agreement, to add to the salary, and make 
it eighty pounds." 

It is deliciously refreshing in this day of 
itching ears in the pews and itineracy in the 
pulpit, to note the quiet assumption that their 
minister had come to the church, as his people 
to the land, '' to stay." The four or five years 
of delay in the increase of salary were allowed 
because the parish in that time would become 
the better able to pay him more. The twenty 
pounds' addition to the original stipend was 
not contingent upon his "drawing" qualities. 

He had ministered unto them for ten years 
when he set his signature — crabbed characters 
that misrepresent the true manliness and gentle 
heart of him who traced them — to the follow- 
ing specification : 

" The town to pay their salary to me in 
wheat, pease, Indian corn and pork, at the 
prices stated, viz : wheat at ^s. ^d. per bushel, 
Indian corn at 2s. per bushel, fatted pork at 
2d. per pound. These being the terms of the 
bargain made with me at first." 

Other items of the original agreement of 



382 Some Colonial Homesteads 

which this is only a formal confirmation, were 
that " they would give him sixteen cow com- 
mons of meadow-land, with a home-lot that 
lyeth on the meeting-house hill — that they will 
build him a house forty-two feet long, twenty 
feet wide, and a linto on the backside of the 
house, to fence his home lot, and within two 
years after this agreement, to build him a barn, 
and break up his ploughing land." 

By the time the twenty-foot-front cottage, 
with the ''linto" (in which we recognize de- 
lightedly the "lean-to," beloved of the New 
England housekeeper a century thereafter) was 
completed, the young minister had a wife ready 
to take care of it and of him. Eunice Mather 
was born August 2, 1664, and was therefore 
four months the senior of her husband, whose 
birthday was December loth of the same year. 
She came of godly parentage. Of her paternal 
grandfather, Richard Mather of Dorchester, 
Mass. it is written that " he was, for fifty years, 
never detained from the house of God, not 
even for a day, by sickness." Her mother's 
father was Rev. John Warham of Windham, 
Connecticut, " formerly a minister of Exeter, 
in England." As the saddest passages of her 
history will show, the pastoress was a woman 



The "Parson Williams" House .^8 



O^J 



of fervent piety and great force of character, 
lier tomb-stone quaintly testifies that she was 
" a virtuous and desirable consort " to the faith- 
ful minister of the isolated parish. 

Between Deerfield and St. Johns in Canada 
the wilderness was unbroken by a single Eng- 
lish settlement, a circumstance that caused no 
especial solicitude to the inhabitants. King 
Philip's death at the hands of Captain Benja- 
min Church in 1676 had, they believed, virtu- 
ally ended everything like sustained Indian 
warfare. Life in the prospering village rolled 
on, — not easily — but without serious jar or 
break. Token of the terrible days of which 
mothers spoke shudderingly to children who 
had never heard the war-whoop, remained in 
stout stockades surrounding the older parts of 
the town, and perhaps one third of the dwell- 
ings were built of two walls of logs or boards, 
the space between the inner and outer being 
filled with bricks. 

The parsonage was within a stockade, to- 
Qfether with several other dwelllnes, but not 
Otherwise defended. In It were born, In the 
seventeen years of the parents' married life, 
nine children. Ellakim, the first-born, died In 
early Infancy, Eleazar, Samuel, Esther, Ste- 



3^4 Some Colonial Homesteads 

phen, Eunice, Warham, the second Eliakim, 
and John, were living when the tragedy oc- 
curred that broke up the happy family-life for- 
ever, and stamped a bloody cross over against 
the history of the lovely New England town. 
I have wavered long between the inclination 
to give here a weird and dramatic story that 
has the attestation of several respectable nar- 
rators of the Deerfield massacre, and my un- 
willingness to set the sanction of history upon 
what may be untrustworthy tradition. Be it 
historical or legendary, the tale of the " Crusade 
of the Bell " is too interesting to be omitted 
from Colonial Sas^as. 

«z> 

The tale is emphatically discredited, I am 
informed, by Miss Alice Baker in her new and 
valuable Trice Stories of N'eiu Engiand Cap- 
tives carried to Canada durijig the Old French 
and Indian Wars, — and meaner authorities 
may well be diffident in citing that which she 
condemns as worse than doubtful. In the In- 
troduction — entitled " The Historical Back- 
ground " — to Mrs. Elizabeth Williams Champ- 
ney's charming book — Great Graiidmothers 
Girls in Nezu France, the author says : 

" The beautiful leo^end of the Deerfield Bell 
which, I found, was firmly believed among the 



The "Parson Williams" House 385 

Canadian Indians, I have not used because our 
cheerful and painstaking local historian and 
antiquarian, the Hon. George Sheldon, to 
whom I am greatly indebted for material for 
this story, has reason to doubt its authenticity." 

With this candid warning to the imaginative 
reader, I proceed to the recital of what may 
or may not be a myth, but which accounts sat- 
isfactorily for an irruption for which hapless 
settlers in the Pocumptuck Valley were unpre- 
pared by any recent hostile demonstrations. 
Mrs. Champney writes aptly of the hush that 
preceded the thunderbolt : 

" Then came a little interval of peace, dur- 
ing which France and England were engaged 
in setting up their chessmen for another trial 
of skill on the great American chess-board." 

Our legend goes back of this calm to tell 
that, several years before, certain pious and 
great folk in France had a bell cast as a gift to 
a Jesuit Mission Church in Canada. The ves- 
sel containing the bell was captured on the 
way across the sea, by a British privateer, and 
the caro^o taken to Boston and sold. The 

<z> 

precious bell was bought for the Deerfield 
church and duly hung in the steeple. News 
travelled slowly then, and the Canadian Mis- 



386 Some Colonial Homesteads 

sion did not learn until many months had 
passed, what had become of their property. 
When the truth was known a French priest 
began to urge upon his neophytes the sacred 
duty of rescuing the treasure from heretic 
hands, and retaliation for the sacrilege done 
upon a consecrated vessel of the Church. Ma- 
jor Hertel de Rouville (who was made a Count 
for his conduct of the enterprise) adroitly 
seized upon the religious zeal thus inflamed, 
as an agent in carrying out a projected attack 
upon the unsuspecting colonists. Two of his 
brothers were among the officers of the expedi- 
tion, which consisted of two hundred French- 
men and about one hundred and fifty Indians. 
The time chosen was February of an unusu- 
ally severe winter. The snow lay deep upon 
the ground, and had drifted against the north 
side of the stockade, forming an inclined plane 
from the points of the pickets to the level. 
This was frozen so hard that it bore the weight 
of the Indians as they ran up the slope and 
leaped into the enclosure below. 

The sentinels, made careless by weeks and 
months of security, had taken refuge from the 
inclement night within the " forts," as the spaces 
surrounded by pickets were called. Separat- 



The ''Parson Williams" House z^y 

ing into parties, the invaders went from house 
to house, crashing in doors and windows and, 
in many homes, tomahawking the occupants 
in their sleep. 

The strongest and largest house in the vil- 
lage belonged to Captain John Sheldon, and 
was the first that offered any resistance to the 
enemy. The door was thick set with great 
nails, and barred upon the inside. Failing to 
break it down, the Indians contrived to hack a 
hole in it with their hatchets and through the 
aperture shot Mrs. Sheldon as she was hur- 
riedly dressing. When they, at last, effected an 
entrance, they used the Sheldon house and the 
church as temporary jails for the prisoners col- 
lected from different parts of the town. But 
one building held out successfully against them 
— one of the double-walled block-houses, de- 
fended by seven men and "a few women." 
From the narrow windows a sharp fire was 
kept up that killed several of the enemy and 
drove the rest back. 

There slept in the Parsonage that night, Mr. 
and Mrs. Williams and six children. Eleazar, 
the eldest living child, a lad of sixteen, was ab- 
sent from home on a visit to a neighboring 
town. Besides the family proper, Captain 



88 Some Colonial Homesteads 



Stoddard and another soldier lodged there, and 
a neofro servant had an attic room. With Mrs. 
Williams, in bed, was an infant that had been 
born on January 15th. The attack on the 
town was made February 29, i 704 being Leap 
Year. 

By the kindness of Mrs. Champney I am 
enabled to construct the story of what followed 
from Mr. Williams's own account of it. In 
1706, he wrote out in full the history of his 
captivity under the title of The Redeemed Cap- 
tive, Returning to Zio7i. The book, dedicated 
to " His Excellency Joseph Dudley, Esq., Cap- 
tain General and Governor in Chief, in and 
over his Majesty's Provinces of the Massachu- 
setts Bay in Neiv England, etc.'' lies open be- 
fore me as I write. It is a thin volume of one 
hundred and fifty-four pages, bound in brown 
leather and stained on every page with the 
mysterious blotches which are the thumb-marks 
of Time. To him who would draw colonial 
history from the fountain-head, it is worth more 
than its weight in gold. 

" They came to my house in the beginning of the on- 
set," writes the minister, " and by their violent endeavors 
to break open doors and windows with axes and hatchets 
awaked me out of sleep ; on which I leaped out of bed.^ 



I 




389 DOOR FROM SHELDON HOUSE HACKED BY INDIANS. 



The ''Parson Williams" House 391 

and running towards the door, perceived the enemy mak- 
ing their entrance into the house ; I called to awaken 
two soldiers, in the chamber ; and returning toward my 
bedside for my arm, the enemy immediately broke into 
the room, 1 judge, to the number of twenty with painted 
faceSy and hideous acclamations. I reached up my hands 
to the bed tester, for my pistol, uttering a short petition 
to God, for everlasting mercies for me and mine^ on the ac- 
count of the merits of our glorified Redeemer ; expecting 
a present passage through the valley of the shadow of 
death, saying in myself — ' / said in the cutting of my days^ 
I shall go to the gates of the grave : I am deprived of the 
residue of ?ny years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even 
the Lord, in the land of the living ; / shall behold man no 
more, with the inhabitants of the world! 

" Taking down my pistol, I cocked it and put it to the 
breast of the first Indian that came up ; but my pistol 
missing fire, I was seized by three Indians who disarmed 
me and bound me naked, as I was in my shirt, and so I 
stood for the space of an hour. Binding me, they told 
me they would carry me to Quebeck. My Pistol missing 
fire, was an occasion of my life's being preserved ; since 
which I have also found it profitable to be crossed in my 
own will." 

One of the three captors was killed at sun- 
rise by a well-aimed shot from the block-house 
garrisoned by the seven men *' and a few wo- 
men." 

Mr. and Mrs. Williams and four of the larger 
children were allowed to dress themselves. 



39- Some Colonial Homesteads 

The baby and Eliakim, the next in age, were 
killed before the parents' eyes as too young to 
endure the journey. The negro woman shared 
their fate. Captain John Stoddard leaped 
from a window and escaped across the river to 
Hatfield, the nearest town, where he gave the 
alarm. Deerfield was fired and the survivors 
of the massacre, in number about one hundred 
and twelve, were driven over the river and col- 
lected at the foot of a mountain under guard, 
while preparations were made for departure. 

" The journey being at least three hundred 
miles we were to travel ; the snow up to the 
knees, and we never inured to such hardships 
and fatigues ; the place we were to be carried 
to, a Popish eoiintryi^ 

The last section of the above paragraph 
jars upon nineteenth-century sensibilities as a 
false note in a recital that might have been 
written with the mourner's heart-blood. As 
we read later pages of the story we cannot 
doubt that the reflection was an added pang. 

Snowshoes were fitted upon the captives' 
feet, and children who could not tramp through 
four feet of crusty snow, were distributed among 
such of the Indians as were willing to carry 
them on their shoulders. The task was inter- 



The ''Parson Williams" House 393 

rupted by an incident that must have kindled 
a spark of hope in the despairing hearts of the 
prisoners. The rescue-party from Hatfield 
** beat out a company that remained in the 
town and pursued them to the river, killing 
and wounding many of them ; but the body of 
the army " — the French and Indians — "being 
alarmed, they repulsed those few English that 
pursued them. 

"After this, we went up the iiiountain, and saw the 
smoke of the fires in the town and beheld the awful 
desolations of Deerfield : And before we marched any 
farther, they killed a sucking child of the English. There 
were slain by the enemy of the inhabitants of Deerfield, 
to the number of thirty-eighty besides nine of the neigh- 
boring towns." 

These nine were of those who risked their 
lives in the ineffectual attempt to succor the 
unfortunates. 

Thus began the awful march of twenty-five 
days to the village of Chamblee, about fifteen 
miles from Montreal. 

On the morning of the second day Mr. Wil- 
liams changed " masters" (they were that al- 
ready), and was permitted by the new guard to 
walk beside his wnfe, give her his arm, and to 
talk freely with her. I shrink from using other 



394 Some Colonial Honiestea 



eis 



words than his in dcscrilMng" what passed be- 
tween the sorrowing" pair during" the last hours 
they were to spend together on earth. 

"On the way'" — (and wiuu a way !) — " we discoursed 
oi the happiness of those who had a right to ii// /lousc not 
made uith hanJs, eternal in the heavens, and CiOD t\>r a 
father and friend, as, also, that it was our reasonable 
duty, quietlv tt> submit to the will of God and to say, the 
will of the Lord be done. My wife told me her strength 
of bodv began to fail, and that I must expect to part 
with her, saving she hoped Cion would preserve my life, 
and the life oi some, if not of all our children, with us : 
and commended to me, under Goi^, the care of them. 
She never spake any discontented word as to what had 
befallen us. but with suitable expressions justified Gon 
in what had happened. We soon made a halt in which 
time my chief master came up, upon which I was put 
upon marching with the foremost, and so made to take 
mv last farewell oi my dear wife, ///:■ desire of r>iy eyes, 
and companion in many mercies and atflictions. Upon 
our separation from each other, we asked for each other, 
grace sufficient for what God should call us to." 

I know o{ but one true narrative of human 
suffering" and pious resignation comparable 
with that which I have copied from the coarse 
paper, discolored by the damps of almost two 
centuries. 

When her straining" eyes lost sight of her 
husband's form bending under the pack lashed 



The "Parson Williams" House 395 

upon his shoulders b\- his " master," this wo- 
man, who had seen within torty-eioht hours 
two of her children die under the tomahawk, 
and four more, inchuhn^" two tender daug'h- 
ters, dri\en into captixity worse than death, 
sat down upon the snow to await the order to 
march, and *' spent the few remainino- minutes 
of her sta\' in reading the Holy Scriptures." 
To what portion of them cinild shc^ turn with 
such certaint\- o( tinding- an echo of her desola- 
ti(Mi and a sta\" to her su.bhme faith, as to the 
chapter that ends with, " In all this Job sinned 
not, nor attributed foil)- to God ? " 

" With suitable expressions " she had justified 
Him in what had happened. It was her habit, 
we are told, " personalK' every day to delight 
her soul in reading, pra\'ing, meditating on, 
and over b\' herseH' in her closet," the Bible 
which she had not forgotten to bring awa\' 
from the lost home in whose burning the bodies 
of her slain children were consumed. Her 
oratory on this, the second day ot a wintry 
March, was upon the bank of Green River, 
about five miles from the present town of Green- 
field. In summer it is shallow^ed to an insig- 
nificant creek. Swollen by the heavy snows, 
it was then nearly two feet deep and an ice- 



39^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

cold torrent. The party that included her hus- 
band and eleven-year-old Stephen, had waded 
through the swift current and were out of sight 
upon the wooded heights beyond, when Mrs. 
Williams and her companions were ordered to 
follow. She was not half-way across when the 
water bore her off her feet and, as she fell, went 
over her head. Weakened by her recent ill- 
ness and the hardships and distress of the past 
two days, she dragged herself up and to the 
shore, sinking there too much exhausted to 
walk a step further, much less to climb the 
mountain at the foot of which she lay. With 
one stroke of his tomahawk her " master " put 
her out of pain and forever beyond the reach 
of sorrow. 

A little company of her former neighbors, 
following cautiously upon the Indians' trail 
some days later, found her body, brought it 
back to Deerfield and eave it loving burial. 
The inscription upon the time-battered stone 
in the town burying-ground may still be de- 
ciphered : 

" Here lyeth the body of Mrs. Eunice Williams^ the 
virtuous and desirable consort of the Rev. John WiUia?ns 
and daughter of Rev. Eleazar and Mrs. Esther Mather of 
Northampton. She was born Aug. 2, 1664, (^nd fell by the 



The ''Parson Williams" House 397 

rage of the barbarous enemy, March z, i'joj-4. Her 
children rise up and call her blessed.'' 

The terrible news was elicited by the hus- 
band from other of the prisoners who overtook 
him at the top of the hill where he was per- 
mitted by his master to rest for a few minutes 
and to lay aside his pack. Mr. Williams was 
begging- to be also allowed to return to look after 
his wife as the sad train came up with him. To 
the horror of the shock succeeded " comfort- 
able hopes of her being taken away, in mercy 
to herself from the evils we were to see, feel, 
and suffer under, and joined to the assembly of 
the spirits of just men made perfect, to rest in 
peace 2e^A joy unspeakable and full of glory!' 

To the devout believer it was not a far cry 
from the bleak mountain-top to the gates of 
the Celestial City. While he toiled onward, 
taunted by his master for the tears he could 
not restrain, his soul arose in the last prayer 
he was to offer for the wife of his youth : 

" I begged of (tOD to overrule in his providence that 
the corpse of one so dear to me, and whose spirit he had 
taken to dwell with him in glory, might meet with a 
Christian burial, and not be left for meat to the fowls of 
the air, and the beasts of the earth. A mercy that Gorx 
graciously vouchsafed to grant." 



39^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

Before hurrying on to the arrival of the 
captives at Chamblee, I cannot refrain from 
transcribing a passage that is infinitely pathetic 
and also, in the ending, graphically significant 
of the militant Protestantism interwoven with 
the very roots of our minister's being. 

" On the Sabbath day, {March ^,) we rested, and I was 
permitted to pray, and to preach to the captives. The 
place of scripture spoken from, was Lam. i, i8 : The 
Lojd is righteous, for I have rebelled against his command- 
ment : Hear I pray you, all people, and behold my sorroic : 
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. 

" The enemy who said to us, Sing us one of Zions songs, 
were ready some of them, to upbraid us, because our 
singing was not so loud as theirs. When the Macquas 
and Indians were chief in power, we had this revival in 
our bondage, to join together in the worship of God, 
and encourage one another to a patient bearing the 
indignation of the Lord, till he should plead our cause. 
When we arrived at New France " (Canada) " we were 
forbidden praying with one another, or joining together iti 
the service of God^ 

Four closely printed pages are devoted to 
struggles with the Jesuits at Fort St. Francois, 
who invited him to dinner, and, after the meal, 
informed him that he, with the other captives, 
would be forced to attend mass. He argued 
with them upon the disputed points between 



The " Parson Williams " House 401 

the two communions until their breath and 
patience gave out. When " forcibly pulled by 
the head and shoulders out of the wigwam into 
the church," he listened, smiling pityingly at 
the " great confusion, where there should be 
gospel order " ; and when the holy fathers 
returned to the charge, met them with " what 
Christ said of the traditions of men." At the 
end of the controversy : — 

" I told them that it was my comfort that 
Christ was to be my judge, and not they at 
the oTcat day. As for their censuring and 
judging me, I was not moved with it." 

Neither was he shaken when his master, with 
the fiery zeal of a proselyte, commanded him, 
tomahawk in air, to kiss a crucifix the savage 
had pulled from his own neck. "And seeing I 
was not moved, threw down his hatchet, saying 
he would first bite off all my nails if I refused. 
He set his teeth in my thumb-nail, and 
gave a gripe, and then said. No good minister, 
no love God, as bad as the Devil \ and so left 
off." 

Again, in Montreal, he did not blench in the 
fire of polemics and persecution, and wrangled 
valiantly with the Jesuits in Quebec over the 
dinner with which they hoped to mollify him. 



402 Some Colonial Homesteads 

The crucial test was applied when the Superior 
of the Jesuits, after eight months of the cap- 
tivity had dragged by, offered to restore his 
children to him and provide an honorable 
maintenance for them and for him if he would 
abjure his faith. 

With the reply, the lofty intrepidity of which 
touches sublimity, I shut the priceless little 
book : 

*' I answered, 'Sir, t'f I thought your religion 
to be true, I zuould embrace it freely without any 
such offer, but so long as I believe it to be what 
it is, the offer of the whole world is of no more 
value to me than a BLACKBERRY.' " 

Italics and capitals are his own. 



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c ^^1 




s^^^^ 




^^ 



XVII 

THE PARSON WILLIAMS HOUSE AT 
DEERFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 

( Concluded ) 

IN company with fifty-seven of his flock, out 
of the hundred and twelve who were car- 
ried into captivity with him, on that black 
February 29, 1 704, Mr. Williams arrived in 
Boston on November 21, 1706. The colonial 
authorities, backed by the Home government, 
had not ceased to labor for their ransom dur- 
ing all these dreary and painful months, and 
the capital city received him with open arms. 

Two of his children returned with him — 
Samuel and Esther. Stephen had been ran- 
somed a year before ; Warham was restored 
to his father's arms in 1707, — '' having entirely 
lost the English language, and could speak 
nothing but French." Eleazar, who had es- 

403 



404 Some Colonial Homesteads 

caped captivity by his temporary absence from 
Deerfield, had been cared for by friends in his 
father's absence, and was now at Harvard. Of 
the missing Eunice we shall hear more and 
somewhat at length presently. 

The minister delayed his return to Deer- 
field for more than a month, naturally enough, 
it seems to us. Inured as he was to calamity, 
and complete as was his justification of the 
ways of God, he was but a man, and the 
scenes attending his departure from home 
were sufficiently vivid in memory without the 
harrowing associations that must be awakened 
by revisiting the spot. Within ten days after 
his arrival in Boston he was waited upon by a 
committee from the Deerfield church, armed 
with a unanimous call to him to renew his 
work among them. This committee no doubt 
formed a part of the great crowd that packed 
the "Boston Lecture" on December 5, 1706, 
to hear " A Sermon b)' John Williams, Pas- 
tor of the Church of Christ in Deerfield soon 
after his return from captivity." 

The text was double-headed : 

"Psal. cvii., 13, 14, 15, 32. 

" ' He saved thou out of their distresses. He brought them 
out of darkness^ and the shado:c' of death ; and brake their 



The "Parson Williams" House 407 

bands in sunder. O^ that men would praise the Lord for 
his goodness ; and for his wonderful works to the children 
of fnen. . . . Let thefn exalt him also in the congrega- 
tion of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elect.' 

" Psal. xxxiv., 3. 

" ' C?, magfiify the Lord with me, a?id let us exalt his tuime 
together.' " 

In the sincerity of their thankfulness at hav- 
ing him back with them, the Deerfield church 
and parish built for him the house which is 
still standing in Old Deerfield, and upon a 
scale that dwarfs our recollection of the 
twenty-by-forty cottage with the convenient 
'Minto." 

''January 9, 1706-7. Att a Legall Town meeting in 
Deerfield, It was yn agreed and voted yt ye Towne 
would build a house for Mr. Jno. Williams in Derfield 
as big as Eus. Jno. Sheldon's, a back room as big as 
may be thought convenient. It was also voted yt Eus. 
Jno. Sheldon, Sar Thomas ffrench, and Edward Alln 
ware chosen a Comity for carying on said work." * — 
History of Deerfield, vol. i., p. 360. 

The new parsonage was two stories in height, 
with four rooms upon each floor. The walls 

* In 1729, or thereabouts, a visitor to Deerfield made a pen-and- 
ink sketch of the Williams church and homestead, Mrs. Eels, an 
elderly resident of the town, founded upon this the painting from 
which is taken our picture of the buildings in their original form. 
No other representation of these interesting relics of the age of the 
captivity is extant. 



4o8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

were handsomely panelled. A wide hall ran 
through the centre of the lower story, and a 
fine staircase wound deliberately to the upper. 
A marked peculiarity of the dwelling, as origi- 
nally constructed, was a secret staircase that 
crooked itself about the chimney from the 
attic — where the terminus was a cubby-hole 
of a room, less than six feet square, nestled 
beneath the slope of the roof — down to the 
cellar-stairs, and so on to a tunnel leading to 
the river. So many of the better class of 
homesteads erected late in the seventeenth, 
and early in the eighteenth, century were 
provided with similar passages that there is 
little cause for the variety of conjectures as 
to their excuses and uses indulged in by the 
visitor of our pacific period. Inspectors of 
the Deerfield manse have been especially 
ingenious in suggestions respecting the stairs 
and subterranean galler\' that formerly existed 
here. The most obvious and rational explan- 
ation, to wit, that the parish — in view of the 
fact that, as a local historian puts it, " Mr. 
Williams, after a serious consideration, ac- 
cepted the call, although the war continued 
with unabated fury, and the inhabitants were 
kept in a constant state of alarm " — resolved to 



The ''Parson Williams" House 409 

put their beloved pastor and his household, so 
far as was possible, beyond the hazard of a repe- 
tition of the horrors and perils that had bereft 
them of him less than three years before. 
The inner staircase, the hidincr-place under the 
roof, and the underground escape-way, as a 
last resort, should the house be fired over the 
colonists' heads, were already an old story. 
The provision of all three was a continual 
object-lesson to the '' redeemed captive " of 
their desire and intention that he should live 
and die among them. 

Others will have it, upon what authority we 
know not, that Mr. Williams, made timid by 
the past, himself went to the expense and 
trouble of having these constructed. A third 
party is ready with stories of smuggling car- 
ried on by the most righteous men of the 
colony, and hints as to the availability of the 
passage-cellar as a storehouse for valuable 
cargoes landed from boats at night in the 
thickets that bordered Deerfield River. It 
cannot be controverted that many fortunes were 
made, and now and then one was lost, in com- 
mercial enterprises of this complexion, — trans- 
actions so much more respectable in our for- 
bears' eyes than in ours, that the possibility of 



4IO Some Colonial Homesteads 

our hero's connivance in them need not bar him 
out from our respectful sympathy. All the 
same, we prefer not to believe the uniiattering 
tale. 

Almost as unlikely is the theor)- that the 
carefully constructed stairway was merely a 
sort of kitchen back-stairs which, by and by, 
was considered useless and done away with, 
the landings being converted into pantries 
which are commonplace enough as we now 
see them. A beautiful china-closet of red 
cedar, the top carved like a shell, is in the 
Memorial Hall of Deerfield, '' dedicated with 
fitting observance," Sept. 8, 1880, such men as 
Charles Dudley Warner, Charles Eliot Norton, 
and George William Curtis bearing a part in 
the solemn ceremony. The closet was set up in 
the new Parsonage for the use of Mr. Williams's 
second wife when he married within a year 
after his second installation over the church. 
She was Miss Abigail Allen of Windsor, 
Connecticut, and a cousin of Eunice Mather. 
To them were born five children. Among 
them was a second John, named, probably in 
tenderly compassionate memory of the month- 
old nursling torn by murderous hands from his 
mother's breast. Those of us who have read 




411 CEDAR CHINA-CLOSET FROM " PARSON WILLIAMS" HOUSE. 



The ''Parson Williams" House 413 

Rose Terry Cooke's capital tale of Freedom 
Wheeler s Controversy, pay fresh tribute to 
her rare skill In depicting New England traits 
and customs, in seeing that a third Eliakim 
stands next to John on the list. They wasted 
no middle names upon babies, at that date, 
and even at that had not enough to go 
around. 

The second John, born November 23, 1709, 
was less than a year old when his father ac- 
cepted the office of chaplain In the movement 
against Canada led by Admiral Walker and 
General Hill, and In the next year revisited the 
land of his captivity yet again, In the same capa- 
city In a winter expedition under the conduct 
of Colonel, formerly Captain, Stoddard for 
the express purpose of redeeming prisoners. 
For some reason, not given by his biographer, 
he made a brief sojourn In the unfriendly 
country. He was back In Deerfield before 
three months were over, and remained there 
until his death, June 12, 1729, in the sixty- 
fifth year of his age and the forty-fourth of 
his ministry. His people mourned for him as 
for a prophet and leader. 

One biographical notice, penned by a brother 
clergyman, cites his 



4H Some Colonial Homesteads 

*' voluntary abandonment of the scenes of his beloved 
nativity, secure from the incursions of the savages, to 
settle in a frontier place, perpetually exposed to their 
depredations . . . and his return to the work of the 
ministry, subject to the same dangers, after the com- 
plicated afflictions of his captivity," as proofs of ardent 
love for the people of his care ; and that " he was ani- 
mated with the spirit of a martyr in the advancement of 
the Gospel." 

This Representative Man of the New Eng- 
land of that hard and heroic period was the 
very stoutest stuff of which martyrs are made. 
He fought what his honest soul conceived to 
be deadly error as Christian fought Apollyon. 
A volume written by him is still preserved as a 
literary and ecclesiastical curiosity. His 
autograph is upon the flyleaf and the title- 
page bears the caption : Sonic joco-seriotis re- 
flections upon Romish fopperies. 1 1 was penned 
in a lighter vein than was common with him 
at sight of the scarlet flag. In summing up 
his '' afflictions and trials ; my wife and two 
children killed, and many of my neighbors, 
and myself and so many of my children and 
friends in a Popish captivity'' he meant the 
italicized words to be the climax of his 
sorrows. 

Hearing that his son Samuel had been 



The '^ Parson Williams" House 415 

'' turned to Popery," he made time in the 
intervals of his labors under a taskmaster, to 
write a letter of ten pages to the lad, which 
brought him back to the old fold, in which he 
remained, a joy and comfort to his father, until 
his death at the early age of twenty-four. 

Eleazar was ordained to the work of the 
ministry in i 710, and his children played about 
their grandfather's knees before he went to his 
reward. Stephen, whose narrative of What 
befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity, indited 
soon after his release, is an extraordinary pro- 
duction for a boy of twelve, also chose his 
father's profession, after his graduation from 
Harvard, and was installed in the picturesque 
town of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, in 1718. 
He served his country as chaplain in three 
campaigns, received the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Divinity from Yale and also from 
Dartmouth, and died, full of years and honors, 
in the ninetieth year of his age. Seven grown 
sons stood by the coffin at his funeral, three 
of whom were clergymen. 

The grand old hero of Deerfield saw still a 
third son in the pulpit, — Warham, who was but 
four years old at the captivity, and so wrought 
upon the compassion of the Indians that they 



4i6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

carried him in their arms and drew him on 
their sledges until they reached Montreal. 
There, as his father writes, " a French gentle- 
woman, pitying the child, redeemed it out of 
the hands of the heathen." He, like his 
brothers, was a Harvard trraduate, and was 
'' ordained minister of Watertown, west pre- 
cinct, now Waltham, Mass.," June ii, 1723. 

" A burning and shining light of superior 
natural powers and acquired abilities," was the 
encomium passed upon him by one who knew 
him and his work well. He died, June 22, 1751. 

Of the redeemed captives gathered by the 
father in the new home at Deerfield, Esther, 
the only daughter left to him, has compara- 
tively little notice from biographers. Her fath- 
er's diary (dated, Sabbath, March 12, 1704), 
couples her with her brother Samuel : " My 
son Samuel and my eldest daughter were 
pitied, so as to be drawn on sleighs when un- 
able to travel. And though they suffered very 
much through scarcity of food and tedious 
journeys, they were carried through to 
Montreal." 

We may picture her to ourselves as the 
grave-eyed, motherly eldest daughter of the 
manse, precocious in care-taking, who had 



The ''Parson Williams ' House 4^7 

been the mother's right hand and confidante. 
We know nothing- except that during her cap- 
tivity she was under the care of Quebec peo- 
ple, who were kind to the motherless girl and 
" educated " her. She married, from the par- 
sonage. Rev. Joseph Meacham of Coventry, 
Conn., and named her eldest daughter, " Eu- 
nice." 

Eleazar, Stephen, and Warham in like man- 
ner perpetuated the sacred name. As long as 
the father lived it was uttered daily in family 
worship, sometimes with strong crying and 
tears, always with groanings of spirit that had 
no articulate language. 

" I have yet a daughter, ten years of age, 
whose case bespeaks your compassion," wrote 
John Williams In 1 706 to Governor Dudley, 
who had " readily lent his own son, Mr. Wil- 
liam Dudley, to undergo the hazards and 
hardships of a tedious voyage that this affair " 
— the release of the captives — " might be 
transacted with success." 

In this diary he unwittingly forecasts her 
future. 

'' My youngest daughter, aged seven years, 
was carried all the journey and looked after 
with a ereat deal of tenderness." 



4i8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

From the outset of her new life, she was 
virtually adopted by her captors. When Col- 
onel Stoddard went to Canada in 1 707, to 
negotiate terms for the release of EnorHsh 
prisoners, he " was successful in redeeming 
many of his fellow citizens, but he could not 
obtain Eunice, the daughter of Mr. Williams." 

In 1 71 1, a futile attempt was made by an 
Indian woman of the Abenakis tribe to ex- 
change Eunice Williams for her two children, 
who had been taken prisoners by the English. 

*' The business is very hard, because the 
girl belongs to Indians of another sort, and the 
master is now in Albany," says a letter of that 
date. 

Colonel John Schuyler of Albany went to 
Montreal in person, April 15, 1713, upon a 
special mission to secure the return of the 
daughter of Rev. John Williams, " now captive 
amono^st the Indians at the fort of Cacrhono- 
waga in Canada. He was to insist upon her 
return, and persuade her to go to her father 
and her native country, it being upon the in- 
stant and urgent desire of her father, now 
minister at Deerfield in New England." 

The Governor of Canada granted the envoy 
*' all the encouragement I could imagine for 



The '^ Parson Williams" House 419 

her to go home ; he also permitted me to go 
to her at the fort. Moreover, he said that, 
with all his heart he would give a hundred 
crowns out of his own pocket if that she might 
be persuaded to go to her native country." 

The Governor was the Marquis de Vaudreull, 
and had Interested himself in the request of 
the Abenakis mother. He was, doubtless, 
weary of the subject and anxious to avoid pos- 
sible future complications and Importunities. 

With a glad heart the emissary hastened to 
the fort of Caghonowaga (Caughnawaga) es- 
corted by one of the king's officers and two 
Interpreters, one who could speak French, the 
other an Indian. 

Eunice was now seventeen and the wife of 
an Indian. His name Is positively stated by 
one historian to have been De Rogers. That 
would bespeak him a half-breed. Others call 
him Amrusus, '' which name Is now believed to 
be an Indian corruption of Ambrolse." Here, 
again, we have an Intimation of French line- 
age. Eunice was rebaptlzed by a Jesuit priest 
as " Margaret." 

Her husband accompanied and remained 
with her throughout the Interview with John 
Schuyler. She wore the dress of a squaw 



420 Some Colonial Homesteads 

and bore herself with sullen reserve which 
defied all efforts to break it down. She did 
not understand English when Colonel Schuyler 
spoke to her in that tongue, and was obdur- 
ately dumb to all questions put to her in 
French and in the Indian dialect. The priest. 
in whose house the painful interview took 
place, was appealed to by the envoy, and 
joined his efforts to the Englishman's — " but 
she continued inipcrsiiadabley 

" I promised, upon my word of honor, if she would 
go only to see her father I would convey her to New 
England, and give her assurance of liberty to return 
if she pleased. After this, my earnest request and 
fair offer upon long solicitation, t\vo Indian words, 
translated ^ Maybe not' were all we could get from her 
in two hours' time." 

As we have read in the chapter upon The 
Schuyler House, John— otherwise Johannes- 
— Schuyler, had " great intiuence vv'ith the 
Indians," acquired by many years of warring, 
tradinor and treatinor with them. Althoueh a 
man of war from his youth up, he had a tender 
heart, and it was fully enlisted on the side 
of the sorrowing father and the expectant 
brothers and sister. His emotion was so ap^ 



The " Parson Williams " House 421 

parent that Eunice's husband, hitherto a quiet 
spectator of the scene, interposed to end it : 

" Seeing that I was so much concerned about her, he 
replied that had her father not married again, she would 
have gone to see him long ere this, but gave no other 
reason, and the time growing late and I being very 
sorrowful that I could not prevail upon her, I took her 
by the hand, and left her in the priest's house." 

There is evidence of the continued interest 
of Colonel Schuyler in the wayward daughter 
in the account written by a granddaughter of 
Rev. Stephen Williams of a visit made by her 
great-aunt Eunice to Longmeadow in 1740. 
"The affair," she says, "was negotiated 
entirely by their friends, the Schuylers." 
Her brothers Eleazar and Stephen, with her 
sister's husband. Rev. Joseph Meacham, met 
Eunice and her husband in Albany and had 
hard work to induce her to come on to Lone- 
meadow. They spent several days with their 
relatives and left with the promise of another 
visit. The delayed fulfilment of the pledge 
is chronicled in Rev. Stephen Williams's 
diary of June and July, 1761. 

" June 30. This day my sister Eunice, her husband, 
her daughter Katharine, and others, came hither from 
Canada." 



422 Some Colonial Homesteads 

"Sister Williams of Deerfield " (that would 
be the wife of his half-brother Elijah, who now 
owned the homestead) sent over an Interpreter 
in advance of the arrival ; his daughters Eunice 
and Martha were with their father upon "ye 
joyfull, sorrowfull occasion," and other rela- 
tives and friends gathered to ereet the exile 
and to entreat her to remain with them. She 
passed one Sunday In Deerfield during this 
visit, and was coaxed Into dressing In the 
English fashion, and attendlno^ service in her 
father's old church. The constraint and sense 
of strangeness of her new costume became 
Intolerable by the time prayers, hymns, and 
sermon were over. As soon as she was back 
in "Sister Williams's" house, she tore off the 
"vile lendlngs," resumed her blanket and leg- 
gings and never laid them aside again. While 
she was with Stephen at Longmeadow, the 
Legislature of Massachusetts offered her a 
grant of land If she would live upon It. " She 
positively refused," says her grandnlece, " on 
the eround that It would endanorer her soul." 

In Stephen's diary for July loth, we have : 

'' This morning my poor sister and company left us. 
I think I have used ye best arguments I could to per- 
suade her to tarry and to come and dwell with us. But 



The ''Parson Williams" House 425 

at present they have been ineifectual. Yet when I took 
my leave of my sister and her daughter in the parlour 
they both shed tears and seemed affected. Oh ! that 
God wd. touch their hearts and incline them to turn 
to their friends and to embrace ye religion of Jesus 
Christ ! " 

And she, with a heart wrung by early mem- 
ories and yearning for companionship with 
those of her own blood, went back to dwell in 
the wilds of Canada lest she should lose her 



souJ 



She paid two other visits to Massachusetts 
before her death which occurred at the age of 
ninety, and her children and grandchildren 
made repeated pilgrimages to Deerfield to 
keep in touch with their kinspeople there. 
The fate that had severed her and her fortunes 
so widely from the trim respectability of New 
England, village-life infused other and yet 
more romantic elements into the lives of her 
offspring. Sarah, her eldest daughter, mar- 
ried the son of the Bishop of Chester, whose 
name, by an odd coincidence, was Williams. 
The young Englishman was a surgeon on 
board of a man-of-war which was captured by 
the French in the war of 1755-60, and was 
taken a prisoner to Canada. His skill as a 



426 Some Colonial Homesteads 

physician, his botanical lore, and his passion 
for adventures in field and in forest, made 
him popular among the Indians. In one of 
the excursions made In their company he 
visited Cauohnawao-a and became so enamored 
of the beautiful half-breed, Sarah, as to accede 
to the condition upon which her parents gave 
consent to the marrlao^e, viz., that he should 
live in Canada. 

Their only son, Thomas Williams, married 
a French woman. Among the children of this 
marriage was Eleazar Williams, born about 
1790, whom many persist to this day In be- 
llvlng to have been the lost Louis XVII of 
France. He was educated In " the States " 
and took orders In the Episcopal Church, 
choosing as his cure of souls a settlement 
of Indians at Green Bay, Wisconsin. His 
relative and biographer, the compiler of the 
Williams Genealogy, adds, 

" He married Miss Mary Hobart Jourdan, a distant 
relative of the King of France " — (Louis Philippe) 
" from whom he had been honored with several splendid 
gifts and honors, among the rest a golden cross and 
star. He has a son John who is now (1846) on a visit 
to the king of France at his request." 

Those who met and knew the faithful mis- 



The ''Parson Williams" House 429 

sionary, — who may have owed his French 
physioonomy and natural grace of manner to 
his mother, Thomas Williams's wife, — describe 
him as a serious-eyed, earnest Christian gentle- 
man, who seldom spoke of the wild tales of his 
royal parentage and his right to a throne, yet 
who believed thoroughly and honestly in them 
all. This conviction and the expression of it 
on the part of such a man, whose parents as- 
suredly could have rent the illusion by a word, 
is perhaps the most astonishing circumstance 
in all the marvellous tissue of tragedy, adven- 
ture, achievement, and heroism that envelops 
and dignifies the homely dwelling standing 
now a little apart from the shaded village 
street. 

It was removed about eighty feet back on 
its own grounds when the Deerfield Academy 
was erected, a building that now occupies the 
site of the parsonage. The Williams house 
itself has suffered many changes, yet certain 
features are unaltered. There are broad win- 
dow-seats where the only daughter left to the 
stricken father may have sat in the twilight 
with her Reverend lover, and Eunice, in her 
Indian dress, perhaps dreamed on moonlight 
evenings of the mother left dead on the bloody 



430 Some Colonial Homesteads 

snow, and tried to forgive her father in his 
erave for the second marriaoe she had resented 
as an insult to the memory* of the true and 
tender " consort." 

As we stroll under the elms that line the 
dear, dreamy old street. I am told that the 
leading- man to-day in the Indian settlement 
of Caughnawaga. is Chief Joseph Williams, a 
direct descendant of Eunice, and a far-off kins- 
man of the sweet and stately woman whose 
summer-rest is taken among her own people. 
She tells me of her visit to the village with the 
impossible name, some years back, and how 
the Crusade of the Bell is held to be history. 
not legend, by the great-great-grandchildren of 
those who burned the town and recovered their 
rightful property, and how the blood-bought 
trophy still hangs in the belfry of the Canadian 
church. 

A monument has been erected lately upon 
the spot where Eunice Williams was slain, over 
on the other side of Green River, and in the 
museum is the old nail-studded door with the 
hole hacked in it through which Mrs. Sheldon 
was shot. 

Deertield has been spoken of as the "sleep- 



The '^ Parson Williams" House 431 

iest town In all New England." We do not 
grudge her a century or two of repose after the 
unrest of her infancy, the anguish of her 

youth. 







will 



VARINA, 



HE HOME OF POCAHONTAS 



JlVHN SMITH, captain, knight, and ex- 
plorer, in pushing- his canoe throug-h the 
tortuous creeks ot the Chlckahominy swamp, 
k I ell into an ambush of 



^41. 



hundred Indian; 




(J^ . \^ J^ v\^ ^*?*\ arec uunureu inuians. 
r-^^^J^i^^C^^^ Alter a desperate defence 
^^^^"^^rSr^f^fe^^ '^' ^^ '^^ taken prisoner by 
^^^^ ^ 4' ^-^ Opechancanough.and car- 



ried, for trial for killing* 
two aborigines, before the 
K iperor Powhatan. Ope- 
"^ chancanoui^hs mit^htier 

brother. 
At each stopping-place in the journe\ tow- 
ard the imperial residence at Werowoco nioco 
— "the chief place of council" — Smi: - 

rates with grim humor, that he "expecUv; :o 
be executed at some one of the fires he saw 

43a 



Varina 433 

blazing- all about them in the woods. 
So fat they fed mee that I much doubted they 
intended to have sacrificed mee to a superior 
power they worship." 

He was still under thirty years of age, well- 
built, and martial in carriage. The full mus- 
tache outlined a firm mouth ; his mien was 
frank, his eyes were fearless and pleasant. 
Stories of his prowess and of his arts of pleas- 
ing had preceded him. 

" Here " (at Werowocomoco) " two hundred grim 
courtiers stood wondering at him as he had beene a 
monster ; till Powhatan and his traine had put them- 
selves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire, upon a 
seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a great robe, 
made of Rarowcun " (raccoon) " skinnes and all the 
tayles hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench 
of sixteen or eighteen yeares, and along on each side the 
house two rowes of men, and behind them as many 
women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red, 
many of their heads bedecked with the white downe of 
birds ; but everyone with something ; and a great chaine 
of white beads about their necks. 

'' At his " (Smith's) " entrance before the King all the 

people gave a great shout. The Queene of Appamatuck 

was appointed to bring him water to wash his hands, 

and another brought him a bunch of feathers instead of 

a Towell to dry them. Having feasted him after their 

best barbarous manner thev could, a long consultation 
38 



434 Some Colonial Homesteads 

was held, but the conckision was, two great stones were 
brought before Powhatan, then, as many as could, layd 
hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid 
his head, and being ready with their clubs to beate out 
his brains, Pocahontas, the King's dearest daughter, 
Avhen no entreaty could prevaile, got his head in her 
arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death, 
whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to 
make him hatchets and her bells, beads, and copper. 
For they thought him as well of all occupations as them- 
selves. For the King himself e will make his own robes, 
shooes, bowes, arrowes, pots ; plant, hunt, or doe any- 
thing so well as the rest." 

'' When no entreaty could prevaile," implies 
a prologue almost as dramatic as the act itself. 
Powhatan had divers wives, twenty sons, and 
ten daughters. Whether by beauty and 
sprightliness, or by force of the dauntless spirit 
that bespoke her, in every inch of her slight 
body, his child in temper and in will, Pocahon- 
tas had a hold upon his savage nature that no 
other creature ever gained. In a captivity 
that had many opportunities of familiar dis- 
course with those who kept him, the knightly 
soldier had made her his friend. She had 
pleaded for him before the hour set for the 
trial. It was not the sudden caprice of a 
spoiled child that had cast her between the 



Varina 435 

club and the head embraced in her arms. 
Still less was it — as a legion of romanticists 
have insinuated or asserted — a transport of 
self-devotion of like strain with that which, in 
the heart of a Tartar princess had, five years 
before, ameliorated Smith's slavery in '' the 
countrey of Tartaria." The Indian girl was 
but twelve years old when she thus recklessly 
risked her life. That she was regarded as a 
child by her grimly indulgent parent is patent 
from the union of Smith's office as armorer to 
his majesty with that of trinket-maker to the 
little princess. 

For a month — perhaps six weeks — Smith 
lived in constant association with his despotic 
host, and the little brunette whom he was 
ordered to amuse. The influence of this pe- 
riod, and the subsequent intimacy to which it 
led, upon her character and career can hardly 
be exaggerated. She had inherited, with her 
father's imperiousness, the intellect that made 
him Emperor, while his brothers were but 
kings, and Werowocomoco the place to which 
the tribes came up for judgment. The sup- 
posed artificer selected to fashion tinkling or- 
naments to please the fancy of the '' salvage " 
maiden, was soldier, traveller, dramatist, his- 



43^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

torian, and diplomatist. From the aborigines 
of the Virginia, whose interests he calls " my 
wife, my children, my hawks, hounds, my cards, 
my dice, in totall, my best content," he learned 
their dialects, social, warlike, and religious cus- 
toms. In acquiring her mother-tongue, he 
taught his to Pocahontas. 

One of his note-books contains a glossary 
of Indian words and phrases, with this super- 
scription : " Because many doe desire to know 
the manner of their" (the Indians) "language, 
I have inserted these few words." The long- 
est sentence has, for a sensitive imagination, a 
story between the lines. Being translated, it 
means, " Bid Pocahontas bring hither two 
little baskets, and I will give her white beads 
to make her a Chaine." 

The touch of affectionate playfulness is 
exquisite in connection with the circumstances 
under which it is likely the phrase was con- 
structed. If he were in love with his benefac- 
tress, it was as a bearded man of the world, 
whose trade was war, miofht love a winsome 
plaything. It is far more reasonable to 
suppose that she drew from him the earliest 
aspirations that led to her conversion to Chris- 
tianity. "What," he asks of his fellow-adven- 




CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 



Varina 439 

tuivrs in the Now XWm'UI, "can a man with 
faiih in roli^^ion do move aj^rcoablo to Cu>cl 
than lo seek to convcal those \)oov savai^os to 
Christ and hnnianiu' ? " 

\\c was tho nunlol. withont foar and withcnit 
reproach, upon which tho child, intoUigont 
beyond her \oars. mooting; him at thc^ most im- 
pressionable period of her life, fashioned hor 
ideas o{ his people. FheN" were lo her as 
gods. Under her tntor, heart, mind, and am- 
bition took on a new ccnnplexit^n. 

There is no other reasonable explanation of 
the loyalty to the b^nglish colonists that became 
a passion with her, earning (ov her the name of 
*' the dear and blessed Pocahontas." 

Smith's nneashiess In his honorable cajUiyity, 
and his efforts to retiu-n to the settlement, 
should exonerate him frc^n the stispicicMi of 
any entanglement o\' the affections in his pres- 
ent abode. Powhatan offered him a princi- 
pality if he woidd cast in his forttnu^s with the 
tribe. Smith's rej^ly was to entreat a safe 
condtict to Jamestown. In his (7r//rra/ Ifis- 
to)'}\ he recapitulates what he had \yritten 
to the queen-consort in i6i6, namely, that 
Pocahontas " not only hazarded the beating- 
out of her owne brains to saye mine, but so 



440 Some Colonial Homesteads 

prevailed with her father that I was safely 
conducted to Jamestown." As the adopted 
son of the mightiest chieftain upon the river 
that had formerly borne his name, Smith could 
make her his wife. If he rejoined his English 
comrades, the chances were all aijainst his 
wedding an illiterate pagan. She was shrewd, 
naturally self-willed, and of strong affections. 
Yet, through her intercession, Smith was 
returned to his people. 

Starvation was staring the settlers in the 
face when, one winter day, a train of red men 
emerged from the forest and approached the 
fort. A little in advance of the ** Indian lile " 
was a lithe hgure, wrapped in a robe of doe- 
skin, lined and edged with pigeon-down. As 
a kincr's dauc^hter, she wore a white heron's 
feather in her black hair ; wrists and ankles 
were banded with coral. A queen in minia- 
ture, she came with gifts of corn and game, in 
quantities that quieted the rising panic. 
" Every once in four or five days," the " wild 
train " thus laden, visited the settlement '* un- 
till the peril of famine was past." Under 
Smith's presidency, Jamestown became a 
village of nearly five hundred inhabitants, with 
twentv-four cannon and abundant store of 



Varina 44 ^ 

muskets. A church took the place of the log- 
hut in which divine service had been held ; 
boys and girls frolicked in the street, without 
fear of tomahawk or war-whoop. A welcome 
and frequent playfellow of these was '' a well- 
featured young girle," fleet of foot, black- 
eyed and brown-skinned. 

'' Jamestown, with her wild train, she as fre- 
quently visited as her father's habitation." 

The wily old Emperor did not scruple to 
play upon the president's gratitude to his 
youthful preserver, when it suited his policy. 
Some depredations had been committed upon 
the settlers, Powhatan presuming upon the 
fact stated by a malcontent, that '' the com- 
mand from England was strait not to offend 
them" — -the ''salvages." Smith, aroused by 
Indian insolence, seized the evildoers, brought 
them to Jamestown, and threatened to shoot 
them. Whereupon Powhatan sent, first, am- 
bassadors, then " his dearest daughter Po- 
cahontas, with assurances of his love forever." 
In full understanding of the value of such 
pledges. Smith delivered the prisoners to Po- 
cahontas, " for whose sake only, he fayned to 
save their lives." Strachys speaks of her in 
connection with this transaction as '' a child of 



442 Some Colonial Homesteads 

tenne yeares." This would be in the summer 
or early autumn of 1608, when she was about 
thirteen. 

Later, in the same year, Powhatan was 
crowned by order of James I. Out of '' com- 
plemental courtesy," the emperor of " Atta- 
nougeskomouch, a/s Virginia," submitted to a 
coronation under the style of " Powhatan I.," 
and became a nominal vassal of the English 
crown. He would nc^t, ho\vc\cr, go to James- 
town to receive diadem and vestments. 

The old warrior was growing surly as well 
as " sour." He would be put through the 
ceremony at his own chief place of council, or 
go uncrowned. 

On the evening preceding the coronation 
the English kindled their watch-fire in an open 
field, near to XWm-owocouioco, and Smith was 
sitting soberly before it upon a mat, when such 
unearthly and " hydeous noise and shreeking" 
issued from the woods as drove the men to 
arms, and to the arrest of two or three old In- 
dians who were loitering near, with the inten- 
tion of holding them as hostages. Forthwith 
there glided out of the forest the familiar and 
beloved form of Pocahontas, offering herself 
as surety for the peaceable designs of her 



V.'irina 443 

confcdcratcis — "vvilliiiL; him Lo kill her if ;iny 
hurt was inlciidcd." 

The " aiUicke " that followcid was a *' Mas- 
carado " so uncouth that \v(\ are i;lad the nar- 
ration does not intimate her active i)artici|)ation 
therein, all^eit it is spoken of as an c;nt('rtain- 
mcMit contrived l)y " l\)cahontas and her 
woJiKMi." I hat which seemed !L;rotes(|n(' and 
even " infernall" to the phlegmatic l^ln^lish- 
man who t(dls the tale, was nncpiestionably a 
solc-mn pageant in the eyes of the princess and 
her aids, and arrani^'ed with inlmite [>ains to do 
honor to i\ut i^-uests. 

Whatever may liave l)een Powhatan's senti- 
ments as to tlie pompous farce in which lie 
b()r(! reluctant part, his daughter apparently 
antlci|)ated his coronation as another link ally- 
ini( hers with the su|)erior race beyond the 
gr(*at sea. 

In reality, the ceremony that lowerc^d an 
emperor to th(; rank of a kiniL( and a vassal 
was a burlescpu' throu<(hout. Pocahontas, 
gazini( from th(! L^rinninii;- faces of the white; 
spectators and the uncomprehending- stolidity 
of h(;r countrymen to her father's lowerint^ 
brow, must have suffc'red a sharp reaction from 
th(; lii^htdiearted hilarity of yestcTnii^ht. 



444 Some Colonial Homesteads 

What the Enoflishmen themselves marvelled 
at as her " extraordinary affection " for them, 
was in no wise weakened by the rapid change 
in her father's attitude toward the invaders. 
Within three months he invited Smith to visit 
him, and when he appeared at Werowocomoco 
with eighteen attendants, received him so cav- 
alierly that the astute soldier felt himself to be 
upon ground as treacherous as the ice through 
wnich he had broken from the boats to the 
shore. 

" Seeing this Salvage but tritie the time to 
cut his throat," he sent word to the men left 
with the boat to land. As the Indians closed 
about him, " with his pistoll, sword, and target 
hee made such a passage among the naked 
Devils that at his first shoot " they fled pre- 
cipitately in all directions. 

The little band of white men encamped 
upon the frozen shore and were preparing 
their eveninof meal, when a visitor announced 
herself. 

I cannot resist the temptation to borrow 
again, and liberally, from the time-stained 
story reprinted from the London edition of 
1629. 

*' Pocahontas, his" (Powhatan's) " dearest Jewell and 



Varina 445 

daughter, in that darke night came through the irksome 
woods, and told our Captaine great cheare should be 
sent us by-and-by ; but Powhatan, and all the power he 
coulde make, would after come to kill us all, if they that 
brought it could not kill us with our owne weapons when 
wee were at supper. Therefore, if we would live, she 
wished us presently to be gone. Such things as she de- 
lighted in, he would have given her ; but with the teares 
running downe her cheekes, she said she durst not be 
seene to have any ; for if Powhatan should know it, she 
were but dead. And soe she ran away by herselfe as 
she came." 

We linger over the picture clashed upon the 
canvas by a hanci untaught in artistic effects, 
until our own eyes are " watered." The child 
— not yet fourteen years old — a bab)' in sim- 
plicity, but a woman in depth of devotion to 
her friends ; brave to recklessness, holdino- 
her life as nothing by comparison with her 
loyalty, but breaking into childlike weeping 
when she tried to speak of the change in him 
whose ' dearest Jewell " she had been ;— roman- 
tic invention pales by the side of this ever-true 
relation of love and fidelity. 

All came to pass as she had warned Smith. 
His coolness and courage prevented the catas- 
trophe planned by the cunning chieftain ; he 
and his men reached Jamestown in safety, and 



44^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

Our Lady of the James appeared no more in 
the streets or houses of the villaofe durinor the 
space of two years. We hear of no other in- 
terview between her and the hero of her child- 
ish imaginings until the meeting between them 
in an English drawing-room seven years later. 
Not many months after Smith's visit to 
Powhatan, the former met with the accident 
that obliged him to return to England for sur- 
gical aid. A contemporary thus refutes the 
scandal that preceded Smith to London, to 
the purport that he "would fain have made 
himself a king by marrying Pocahontas, Pow- 
hatan's daughter." 

" Very oft she came to our fort with what she could 
get for Captain Smith, that ever loved and used all the 
country well, and she so well requited it that when her 
father intended to have surprised him, she by stealth, in 
the dark night, came through the wild woods and told 
him of it. If he would, he might have married her." 

There were reasons many and stringent for 
her disappearance from the theatre of colonial 
history. 

*' No sooner had the salvages understood 
that Smith was gone, but they all revolted and 
did spoil and murther all they encountered." 

Ratcliffe, Smith's successor, visited Powha- 



Varina 447 

tan with "thirtie others as careless as himself," 
and was killed with all his party except one 
man, who escaped, and a boy, whose life 
Pocahontas saved. '* This boy lived many 
years after by her means among the Pata- 
womekes " (Potomacs). 

Jamestown was rehabilitated by Lord De 
la Warr, he building upon the foundations 
laid by Smith's travail of soul and body. De 
la Warr was succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale — 
** a man of great knowledge in divinity, and 
of good conscience in all things." 

The " Nonparella of Virginia" during these 
changes, had left her father s house, and gone 
to sojourn with friends of hers in the Potomac 
tribe. Coupling the circumstance with the 
adoption of the lad whose life she had saved 
by the same friendly people, we attach much 
siornihcance to the remark that she "thouorht 
herself unknowne " In that reelon. She was, 
apparently, in refuge, and, as she supposed, 
incognita. The secret of her nocturnal ex- 
pedition had been betrayed to her father. 
That he wreaked his wrath upon her until 
existence with him became insupportable is 
wellnigh certain. She had found comparative 
peace in an asylum in the wigwam of one 



448 Some Colonial Homesteads 

Japazaws, " an old acquaintance of Captain 
Smith's, and exceedingly friendly to the 
English." 

Captain Samuel Argall, a semi-privateers- 
man, was sent up the Potomac for corn by the 
Governor of Virginia, and, upon the principle 
of natural selection, " entered into a great 
acquaintance with Japazaws." Shortly before 
Argall left Jamestown the Indians made a raid 
upon the environs of the fort, carrying off, 
not only *' swords, peeces, tooles, &c.," but 
several men. In the course of a friendly 
gossip with Japazaws, Argall learned that a 
daughter of the truculent emperor — Poca- 
hontas, or Matoax by name — was the guest 
of the Indian's squaw. 

Negotiations ensued, in which Indian prln- 
ples of loyalty to friends, protection of the help- 
less, and hospitality to the Innocent stranger 
within his lodge were weighed against a burn- 
ished copper kettle, flashed by Argall before 
the gloating eyes of the noble Potomac. 

Japazaws went home and beat his wife until 
she agreed to feign an intense desire to go on 
board this particular English vessel. Her 
lord consented presently to let her visit it 
provided Pocahontas would go with her. 



Varina 449 

The coarse plot was coarsely and cruelly 
carried out. 

Master Hamor's relation of " the surrender 
of the government to Sir Thomas Dale who 
arrived in Virginia the tenth of May, 161 1," 
goes coolly, and in fact, zestfully, into the 
details of the righteous treachery, the while 
he feigns to pity the victim : 

'' And thus they betrayed the poor, innocent Poca- 
hontas aboard, where they were all kindly feasted in 
the Cabin. Japazaws treading oft on the Captain's foot 
to remember he had done his part, the Captain, when 
he saw his time, persuaded Pocahontas to the gun-room, 
faining to have some conference with Japazaws, which 
was only that she should not perceive he was in any way 
guilty of her captivity. So, sending for her again, he 
told her before her friends she must go with him, and 
compound peace between her country and us, before 
she ever should see Powhatan, whereat the old Jew and 
his wife began to howl and to cry as fast as Pocahontas, 
that upon the Captain's fair persuasions, by degrees 
pacifying herself, and Japazaws and his wife, with the 
kettle and other toys, went merrily on shore, and she 
to Jamestown." 

Sir Thomas Dale's message to Powhatan, 
that "his daughter Pocahontas he loved so 
dearly must be ransomed with " the white 

prisoners and stolen property, " troubled him 

29 



450 Some Colonial Homesteads 

much, because he loved both his daughter 
and our commodities well." Nevertheless, it 
was three months before he vouchsafed anv 
reply whatever, or took any notice of the 
humiliating intelligence. 

" Then, by the persuasion of the Council, he returned 
seven of our men, with each of them an unservicable 
musket, and sent us word that when we would deliver 
his daughter he would make satisfaction for all injuries 
done us, and give us five hundred bushels of corn, and 
forever be friends with us. What he sent were received 
in part of payment and returned him this answer ; That 
his daughter should be well used, but we could not believe 
the rest of our arms were either lost or stolen from him, 
and therefore, till he sent them, we would keep his 
daughter. 

" This answer, it seemed, much displeased him, for we 
heard no more from him for a long time after." 

Powhatan never regained the ground thus 
lost in his daughter's affections. With pride 
equal to his own, she brooded over the public 
insult offered her by his silence and seeming 
indifference. She was branded as an outcast 
from her father's heart and tribe. But for the 
kindness of the aliens he hated, she would be 
homeless and friendless. The bruised heart, 
still palpitating with the pain of her Potomac 



Varina 45 1 

host's treachery, accounted as worthless by him 
who had given her being, was trembHngly 
susceptible to the touch of sympathy. The 
people of Jamestown received her with affec- 
tionate hospitality. The long-repressed crav- 
ing for refinement and knowledge of the great, 
beautiful world — the echoes from which had 
first thrilled her untauQrht soul durine the 
golden month passed in her forest-home by 
the superb stranger with the kind eyes and 
winning smile — was now to be gratified. She 
descried in her present environment the realiz- 
ations of the ambitions awakened by Smith's 
talk and teachings, and by the conversations 
between him and George Percy and other 
compeers, to which she had lent rapt atten- 
tion. Her dream-world had become the ac- 
tual and present. 

By comparison with the village of wigwams 
which was her forest-home, Sir Thomas Dale's 
'' new towne " was a noble city, with its " two 
rowes of houses of framed timber, some of 
them two stories, and a garret higher, three 
large Store-houses joined together in length," 
and the "strong impalement" that encom- 
passed all. 

" This He, and much orround about it, is much 



452 Some Colonial Homesteads 

inhabited, " the anonymous scribe winds up 
the description by saying, complacently. 

The colonists made a pet of the lonely- 
hearted hostage. She was nearly eighteen 
years old, with soft, wistful eyes, delicately 
arched brows, a mouth at once proud and 
tender, and slender hands and feet ; not tall, 
but straight as a birch-sapling, and carrying 
herself with a sort of imperious grace that 
rebuked familiarity. Where she loved, she 
was docile ; what Smith alludes to as her '' so 
great a spirit," leaped to arms when there was. 
need of courage. 

She went willingly enough with Sir Thomas. 
Dale, the next spring, when he sailed up the 
York River to treat with, or to fight Powhatan, 
as might seem best upon their arrival at " his 
chief e habitation." After a good deal of tem- 
porizing, a little skirmishing, and some rapine 
on the part of the visitors, the worthy baronet 
proposed an interview between the emperor 
and his daughter. Instead of coming him- 
self to the rendezvous, Powhatan sent two of 
his sons, under flag of truce. The young- 
princes, comely, manly fellows, embraced their 
sister fondly, rejoiced in her health and good 
looks, and engaged to do their best to persuade 



Varina 453 

their father to redeem her. At the mention of 
his name she demeaned herself with a hauteur 
it is a pity the obstinate old heathen was not 
there to see. In bitterly decisive w^ords she made 
answer to her brothers' soothing assurances : 

"If my father had loved me he would not 
value me less than old swords, pieces, and axes ; 
wherefore I will still dwell with the English- 
men who do love me." 

The weaning was complete. To her brothers 
she spoke privately of one Englishman whose 
love differed in quality and degree from the 
rest. The rumor of this was quickly bruited 
at Jamestown and in Werowocomoco, giving 
profound satisfaction in both places. John 
Rolfe, " an honest o^entleman and of orood 
behaviour," was fairly educated, a stanch 
churchman of a most missionary spirit, a well- 
to-do widower, and a protege of Sir Thomas 
Dale. If, after perusing the open letter to his 
patron, announcing his disposition and inten- 
tion in the matter of this alliance, the additional 
-epithet " a pious prig," do not escape the 
reader, it will be because Jin de sieclc taste 
prompts a stronger. After an introduction 
resonant with pietistic twang, he leans labori- 
ously upon the pith of his communication : 



454 Some Colonial Homesteads 

" Let therefore this, my well-advised protestations, 
which here I make before God and my own conscience, 
be a sufficient witness at the dreadful day of judgement, 
when the secrets of all living hearts shall be opened, to 
condemn me herein, if my deepest interest and purpose 
be not to strive with all my powers of body and minde 
in the undertaking of so great a matter for the good of 
this plantation, for the honor of our countrie, for the 
glory of God, for my own salvation and for the conver- 
ting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an 
unbelieving creature ; viz.: Pokahontas. To whom my 
hartie and best thoughts are, and have a long time bin so 
intangled and inthralled in so intricate a labyrinth that 
I was ever awearied to unwinde myself thereout. 

" To you, therefore (most noble sir), the patron and 
father of us in this countrie, doe I utter the effects of 
this my settled and long-continued affection (which hath 
made a mighty warre in my meditations), and here I do 
truly relate to what issue this dangerous combat is come 
untoe, wherein I have not only examined but thoroughly 
tried and pared my thoughts, even to the quicke, before 
I could finde any fit, wholesome, and apt applications to 
cure so dangerous an ulcer." 

He probes still further into the 

*' grounds and principall agitations which thus provoke 
me to be in love with one whose education has been 
rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, 
and so discrepant in all nurtreture from myself that 
oftentimes, with fear and trembling, I have ended my 
private controversie with this : ' Surely these are 



Varina 455 

wicked instigations hatched by him who seeketh and 
delighteth in man's destruction. . . .' 

" Besides the many passions and sufferings which I 
have daily, hourly — yea, in my sleepe endured, even 
awaking me to astonishment, taxing me with remissness 
and carelessness, refusing and neglecting to performe the 
duties of a good Christian, pulling me by the eare, and 
crying * Why dost thou not indeavor to make her a 
Christian ? ' 

" And if this be, as undoubtedly this is, the service 
Jesus Christ requireth of his best servant, wo unto him 
that hath these instruments of pietie put into his hands 
and wilfully despiseth to work with them. Likewise, 
adding hereunto her great appearance of love to me, her 
desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge of 
God, her capablenesse of understanding, her aptness and 
willingness to receive anie good impression, and also the 
spirituall, besides her own incitements thereunto stirring 
me up.' 

" What shall I doe ? Shall I be of so untoward a dis- 
position as to refuse to leade the blind into the right 
way ? Shall I be so unnaturall as not to give breade to 
the hungrie ? " 

To this end had the brave, passionate, loyal 
dreamer come ! We easily trace the stages of 
the match-making. Rolfe, commonplace, sanc- 
timonious, and shrewd, on the lookout for a 
second wife and awake to the advantages of 
wedding a princess, even though she were a 
savage ; the unsophisticated child of nature, 



45^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

with a head full of overwrought fancies, ready 
to believe every English cavalier a demi-god ; 
the conscientious governor, keen alike for 
Christian neophytes and for a respite from 
wars and rumors of wars, which a union be- 
tween prominent representatives of the two 
races would brincr about — it was a clever sum 
in the *' rule of three " and skilfully worked 
out that winter of 1612-13. 

So they took her back to Jamestown and 
baptized her at the font in the church built by 
Lord de la Warr, christeninor her " Rebecca." 
Under this name they wedded her to John 
Rolfe, one April day. The tower still stands 
in which hung the two bells that rang joyfully 
as bride and groom passed through the narrow 
archway. 

The marriage cemented a lasting peace be- 
tween the two nations. Powhatan, true to his 
purpose of holding no personal communication 
with the aliens, never visited his "jewell," 
either in Jamestown or at her husband's plan- 
tation of Varina, near Dutch Gap, on James 
River ; but he sent friendly messages from 
time to time, to "his daughter and unknown 
Sonne," and would know " how they lived, 
loved, and liked." 



'~'-;^/^m^^ 




TOWER OF OLD CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA, IN WHICH 
457 POCAHONTAS WAS MARRIED. 



Varina 459 

An amusing incident connected with the 
visit of Sir Thomas Dale's ambassador, to 
whom Powhatan addressed this query, shoots 
a side-ray upon the character of the conscien- 
tious and theological governor that throws the 
popular portrait of him out of drawing. 

When Powhatan had for answer that 

" his brother, Sir Thomas Dale, was well, and his daugh- 
ter so contented she would not live again with him, he 
laughed, and demanded the cause of my coming. I 
told him my message was private and I was to deliver it 
only to himself and one of my guides that was acquainted 
with it. Instantly he commanded all out of the house, 
but only his two Queens that always sit by him, and 
bade me speak on." 

The messenger offered, as a preamble to 
the motif of his communication, two pieces of 
copper (household utensils), five strings of 
white and blue beads, five wooden combs, ten 
fish-hooks, a pair of knives and the promise of 
a grindstone if Powhatan would send for it, 
all of which pleased the monarch hugely. 

" But then I told him his brother Dale, hearing of the 
fame of his youngest daughter, desiring, in any case, he 
would send her by me unto him in testimony of his love, 
as well as for that he intended to marry her, as the de- 
sire her sister had to see her, because being now one 



4^0 Some Colonial Homesteads 

peo])le and he desirous for ever to dwell in his country, 
he conceived there could not be a truer assurance of 
peace and friendship than in such a natural band of an 
united union." 

Powhatan broke in upon this astounding 
proposition more than once, but the English- 
man had his say to the end. " Presently, with 
much gravity," — that does credit to his breed- 
ing and discounts his sense of humor, — the 
monarch proceeded to say that, while his 
brother's pledges of good-will "were not so 
ample as formerly he had received," he ac- 
cepted them "with no less thanks." As for 
his daughter, he " had sold her within these 
few days, to a great Werowance, for two 
bushels of Rawrenoke " (whatever that might 
be)," three days journey from me." 

The Englishman's suggestion that the amo- 
rous graybeard would give him three times the 
worth of the mysterious commodity in beads, 
copper, hatchets, etc., if he would recall the 
bride — " the rather because she was but twelve 
years old " — was a futile bait. Powhatan re- 
minded him that Sir Thomas Dale had a 
pledge of his friendship in one of his daughters. 
So long as she lived, this must suffice. Should 
she die, his dear brother should have another 



Varina 4^1 

in her place, but he " held it not a brotherly 
part to bereave him of his two children at 
once. 

" I am now old, and would gladly end my 
days in peace. If you offer me injury, my 
country is large enough to go from you. Thus 
much I hope will satisfy my brother. Now, 
because you are weary, and I sleepy, we will 
thus end," — wound up the queer interview. 

In parting with the envoy he made him 
write down in '' a table-book " a list of articles 
he would have his brother Dale send to him, 
not forgetting the grindstone, and sent two 
" Bucks skins as well dressed as could be to 
his Sonne and daughter." John Rolfe's name 
is signed to an attestation of the truth of the 
narrative to this letter of Master Ralph 
Hamor. The interest he took in the negotia- 
tion emphasizes Hamor's mention of Pocahon- 
tas's desire to see her sister, and makes us 
almost sorry for the failure of Sir Thomas's 
embassy. 

Another letter-writer, under date of ''From 
Virginia, June i8, 1614,'' subjoins to the 
above : 

" I have read the substance of this relation in a Letter 
written by Sir Thomas Dale, another by Master Whita- 



4^2 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ker, and a third by Master John Rolfe ; how carefull 
they were to instruct her in Christianity, and how capa- 
ble and desirous shee was thereof ; after she had been 
some time thus tutored, shee never had desire to goe to 
her father, nor could well endure the society of her own 
nation. The true affection she constantly bare her hus- 
band was much, and the strange apparitions violent pas- 
sions he endured for her love, as he deeply protested, 
was wonderfull, and she openly renounced her countrie's 
idolatery, professed the faith of Christ, and was bap- 
tized." 

*' She lives civilly and lovingly with her husband, and, 
I trust, will increase in goodness, as the knowledge of 
God increaseth in her," writes Sir Thomas Dale in 1616. 
*' She will go to England with me, and were it but the 
gaining of this one soul, I will think my time, toil, and 
present time well spent." 

With this transatlantic vovacre beo^ins the 
last chapter in the mortal life of the little mis- 
tress of the fair plantation of \'arina, the 
home to which her English bridegroom took 
her. Even the site of the home in which she 
learned how to keep house after the English 
manner, and where her *' chllde " was born, is 
unknown. The plantation was situated a few 
miles below Richmond and the tobacco culti- 
vated thereupon had a fine reputation. Little 
else is known of it. 

The banks of the beautiful river from 




463 



POCAHONTAS. 



Varina 465 

Jamestown to Henricus are consecrate to her 
dear memory. 

She, her husband, and her Uttle son, " which 
she loved most dearely," in company with the 
conscientious Governor, landed in Plymouth, 
England, June 12, 1616. Six months later we 
hear of her as the object of much and admiring 
interest in fashionable circles. She had been 
presented at court, and under the unremitting 
tutelage of " Master John Rolfe and his 
friends," had learned to " speake such English 
as might well bee understood, and was become 
very formall and civill, after our English 
manner." 

Alas, for the poor, transplanted wild flower ! 

The only portrait taken of her, and given in 
this chapter, bears the date of that year. In 
some such garb as we see in it (barring the 
tall hat), she might have been arrayed when 
John Smith, now Admiral of New England, 
and on the eve of a third voyage to America, 
called to see her at Branford, near London, 
accompanied by several friends. Smith ap- 
proached her respectfully, accosting her as 
" Lady Rebecca." After one swift look, she 
turned aside, and buried her face in her hands, 
*' without anie word " and, it would seem. 



4^6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

withdrew from his immediate presence. As is 
sadly meet, we leave her old friend to tell the 
story. 

*' In that humour, her husband, with divers others, we 
all left her two or three houres, repenting myselfe to 
have writ she could speake English. But not long after, 
she began to talke, and remembered mee well what cour- 
tesies she had done, saying ; ' You did promise Powhatan 
what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you. 
You called him " Father," being in his land a stranger, 
and by the same reason soe must I doe you.' 

" Which, though I would have excused, I durst not 
allow of that title, because she was a king's daughter." 

Reading the above, we call to mind that 
foolish King James — forgetful or ignorant of 
Powhatan's twenty sons and ten daughters — 
had expressed a fear lest, in the event of 
Pocahontas's succession to her father's throne, 
the kingdom of Virginia would " be vested in 
Mr. Rolfe's posterity." It behooved Smith, 
in recollection of the malicious reports relative 
to his own pretensions in that direction, to 
accentuate the distance between his estate and 
that of the Lady Rebecca. 

What a tumult of emotions must have held 
the young hostess dumb during the long inter- 
val so awkward to husband and guests ! 



Varina 467 

Smith, withheld by prudence and the etiquette 
he understood better than she — ^despite Mas- 
ter Rolfe's driUing — from approaching her, 
longed to say to her in her native tongue 
what he would not have others hear. He 
could, he felt, have won her from her seem- 
ingly inclement '' humour," if only he had not 
boasted of her proficiency in English. And 
he must again stab the faithful heart by refus- 
ing this token of his remembrance of their 
former intimacy. We can imagine that he lis- 
tisned, embarrassed with down-dropt lids, as 
she gained in steadfast composure. 

"With a well-set countenance, she said : 'Were you 
not afraid to come into my father's Countrie, and caused 
feare in him and all his people (but me) and feare you 
here I should call you ''father?"' {i.e., here you are 
afraid to have me call you father.) ' I tell you, then, 
I will, and you shall call me childe, and so I will bee 
forever and ever your Countrieman. They did tell us 
alwaies you were dead, and I knew no other till I came 
to Plimoth ; yet Powhatan did command Vitamatomak- 
kin ' (one of Powhatan's council, who accompanied her 
to England) ' to see you, and know the truth — because 
your Countriemen will lie much ! ' " 

The sigh of disillusion is in every sentence ; 
the last is a sharp cry of pain. Who had 



4^8 Some Colonial Homesteads 

deceived her? and why? Had Rolfe's ''solic- 
itude and passion " and the proselyting diplo- 
macy of his lord and patron, conspired to get 
her ideal Englishman off the stage of her 
imagination that the widower might have a 
clear field ? Conjecture cannot but be busy 
here — and, after all, confess itself conjecture 
still. 

There is little more to tell. '' Formall and 
civill " in outward seeming, she was at heart 
homesick. The winter tried her semi-tropical 
constitution severely ; she fell ill with rapid 
consumption ; preparations were hastily made 
for her return to Virginia — somewhat oddly, 
in Captain Argall's vessel. On the day before 
the good ship George was to sail, the Lady 
Rebecca died suddenly. 

*' It pleased God at Gravesend to take this 
young lady to his mercie, where shee made 
not more sorrow for her unexpected death 
than joy to the beholders to heare and see her 
make so religious and godly an end." 

Thus the chapter, signed, ^'Samuel Argall, 
John Rolfe^ 

Tradition has it that she died sitting in an 
easy-chair, by an open window, her eyes fixed 
wistfully upon the western ocean. 



Varina 469 

" Her little child, Thomas Rolfe, was left at 
Plimouth, with Sir Lewis Stukly, that desired 
the keeping of it." 

She was but twenty-two years old. Trav- 
elled and erudite Purchas writes of her last 
days : 

" She did not only accustom lierself to civilitie, but 
still carried herself as the daughter of a King, and was, 
according respected, not only by the Company which 
allowed provision for herself and son ; but of divers 
l>articular persons of honor in their hopeful zeal for her 
to advance Christianity. I was present when my honor- 
able and reverend patron, the Lord Bishop of London, 
Dr. King, entertained her with festival, and state and 
pomp, beyond what I have seen in his great hospitalitie 
afforded to other ladies. At her return towards Vir- 
ginia, she came to (xravesend to her end and grave." 

Hon. William Wirt Henry, whose Life and 
Letters of Pati^ick Hcmy rank him among the 
most accomplished historiographers of our 
country, has paid a more eloquent tribute to 
Our Lady of the James : 

". . . Pocahontas, who, born the daughter of a 
savage king, was endowed with all the graces which 
become a Christian princess ; who was the first of her 
people to embrace Christianity, and to unite in marriage 
with the English race ; who, like a guardian angel, 



470 Some Colonial Homesteads 

watched over and preserved the infant colony which has 
developed into a great people, among whom her own 
descendants have ever been conspicuous for true nobil- 
ity ; and whose name will be honored while this great 
people occupy the land upon which she so signally 
aided in establishing them." 




GRAVE OF POWHATAN ON JAMES RIVER. 







XIX 
JAMESTOWN AND WILLIAMSBURG 

IN the by-gone time in which the tide of 
Southern travel flowed up the Potomac 
River, the custom prevailed of tolling the 
bell as each steamer passed Mount Vernon. 
At the sound the passengers gathered upon 
the forward deck to gaze with bared heads 
upon the enclosure in which are the ashes of 
Washington. Sadder and not less reverent 
might be the toll with which river-craft should 
announce the approach to the ruined tower 
upon a low headland of the James. 

Here on May 13, 1607, was set the first 
rootlet of English dominion in the vast Vir- 
ginia plantation that was to outlive pestilence 
and famine and savage violence. The bounds 
of what an old writer calls a *' mighty empire " 
are thus defined : 



471 



472 Some Colonial Homesteads 

" On the east side is the ocean ; on the south 
lieth Florida ; on the north Nova Francia " 
(Canada) ; *'as for the west, the limits thereof 
are unknown." 

De la Warr found upon the marshy penin- 
sula, in 1610, a church twenty-four feet broad 
by sixty long. The site was the same as that 
occupied by " the old rotten tent" under 
which the first Protestant service in America 
was held. During his administration the sanc- 
tuary was decorated on Sunday with flowers 
and evergreens, and opened for daily afternoon 
service during the week. There were a bap- 
tismal font, a tall pulpit, a chancel of red 
cedar, and in the tower two bells. These 
rang a joyous peal in the April of 161 3, when 
John Rolfe and Pocahontas knelt in the aisle 
for a nuptial benediction. 

The tower roofinof the vestibule stands still. 
The mortar is as hard as stone, and the bricks 
are further bound together by ivy stems and 
roots. The arched doorway is that through 
which '' the Lady Rebecca " and her pale-face 
bridegroom passed that day, arm in arm. 
Vandal hammer and pick have dug holes in 
the sides. The church, flanked by the tower, 
has crumbled to the foundations ; in the 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 473 

crowded graveyard behind it ruthless tourists 
have not left one stone upon another. Fennel 
brushes our shoulders, and brambles entangle 
our feet as we explore the waste grounds. 
A quarter-mile away is a government building 
erected by Sir William Berkeley, and after- 
ward and for many years the homestead of the 
Jaquelins and Amblers.^ The silent decrepi- 
tude of neglected old age broods over the 
landscape ; the tawny river slowly and surely 
licks away the clayey banks. 

The place is haunted. In the languorous 
calm of the spring-like weather we sit upon the 
broken wall in the shadow of the ivy-bound 
tower, the dead of six generations under our 
feet, and dream. Now and then we talk softly 
of what has been here, and of those who people 
our dream-world. 

John Smith, the conqueror of kings, walked 
these shores and took counsel with brave, 
loyal George Percy. Hereabouts he welcomed 
Pocahontas and her train of forest maidens, 
and withstood to their teeth Wingfield and 
Ratcliffe and Archer. Here Sir Thomas Dale 
negotiated the marriage of Powhatan's daugh- 

' Since this chapter was written the Ambler House has been 
destroyed by fire. 



474 Some Colonial Homesteads 

ter with worthy Master John Rolfe, after the 
Governor had quelled by Scripture and diplo- 
macy the " mighty war in the meditations " 
of the oTfave lover touching^ the lawfulness of 
weddinor a " strano^e woman " who came of a 
"generation accursed." In the chancel, the 
exact location of which we take pains to iden- 
tify, the girl-convert to Christianity received 
the water of baptism and her new name. 
About this spot were dug the ditches of the 
rude fortifications behind which Sir William 
Berkeley defied Bacon, the miasmatic moats 
from which the fiery young rebel drew the 
fever germs that ended his days shortly after 
he had laid Jamestown in ashes. Over there, 
where the tangle of briar and weed is thickest, 
was consigned to rest the body of sweet Lady 
Frances Berkeley, who sickened and died at 
Green Spring after she had seen her husband 
sail for England ; had seen, also, the glare of 
the bonfires and heard the salvoes of artillery 
with which the colonists rejoiced at the de- 
parture of one whom they execrated as a bloody 
tyrant. A fragment of her tombstone is In 
the drawing-room of the isolated dwelling to 
our right, taken in by a pitying stranger to pre- 
serve it from the sacrilegious hammer aforesaid. 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 475 

Every foot of soil has been soaked in blood 
since Smith and his colony took possession of 
the goodly land in the name of God and King 
James. As far as the eye can reach, the level 
tract is enwrapped with historic and romantic 
associations, as it will to-night be veiled by 
clinging mists. 

By the road along which Bacon spurred in 
hot haste to take, at '' the Middle Plantation," 
the oath to oppose his Majesty's Governor 
and Representative, we are driven to the 
scene of that stormy episode in the tragedy 
of Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion. A long, crazy 
bridge crosses the creek that has converted the 
peninsula into an island. Marsh-lands, drear- 
ily depressing, border the highway until we 
enter the forest. The bed of the winding 
road is sometimes of red, sometimes of white 
clay. Overhead and far away — 

" the buzzard sails on 
And comes and is gone, 
Stately and still, like a ship at sea." 

The spell of pensive silence is over the 
whole country. We pass few houses, and 
meet but one vehicle — a wagon, in which a 
party of hunters is going river-ward. A slain 



4/6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

deer is huddled in the back of the vehicle. 
Two tired dogs trot after it, with lolling 
tongues and muddy feet. 

As we near the ancient capital of Virginia, 
no stir of city life comes out to greet us. 
Governor Francis Nicholson removed the 
seat of government from Jamestown to the 
flourishing Middle Plantation in the " boom " 
that followed the accession of William and 
Mary. In paroxysmal loyalty, he laid out 
the future metropolis monogrammatically, de- 
signing a perpetual testimony to the wedded 
sovereigns and his own ingenuity. One 
straight street, a measured mile in length, 
was the spinal column of the plan. It still 
bears the name he gave it, of the boy Duke 
of Gloucester, the heir-presumptive to the 
throne, then filled by his childless aunt and 
uncle-in-law. Diverging thoroughfares were 
to form, on one side, a capital W ; upon the 
other, an M. The street had one terminus in 
William and Mary College, the second uni- 
versity l:)uilt in the New World. Harvard 
is her senior. The Bishop of London was 
the first Chancellor. Sir Christopher Wren 
drew the plan of the original edifice (burned 
in 1705). The Reverend James Blair, the 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 477 

only man in Virginia who was not intimidated 
by the eccentric and truculent Governor, was 
the first president. 

We alight at the gate by which the campus 
debouches Into Duke of Gloucester Street. 
To the right Is the President's house. The 
bricks, alternately gray and dull-red, like a 
checker-board, were brought from England 
two hundred years ago. The venerable dwell- 
ing Is occupied now, and the front doors of 
the ancient and honorable halls of learning 
stand hospitably open. For almost a score 
of years after the war there were neither pro- 
fessors nor students within the hoary walls. 
On five mornings of each week. In term-time, 
the President, whose home was a little way 
out of town, unlocked the door of the college, 
rang the bell and read prayers in the chapel, 
preserving by this form the charter of the 
Institution. Imagination can conjure up no 
more dramatic and pathetic picture than that 
of the old man — a war-scarred veteran of the 
civil conflict — plodding through the daily 
routine from month to month, and year to 
year. What a company of august shades 
filled the seats as collect and psalm were said 
to seemingly empty space ! Twenty members 



47^ Some Colonial Homesteads 

of Congress, seventeen state Governors, two 
Attorney-Generals, twelve college professors, 
four signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, one Chief-Justice, four cabinet officers 
and three Presidents of the United States — 
were graduates of " old William and Mary," 
besides eminent soldiers, men of letters, and 
reverend divines whose names star the pages 
of Colonial and Commonwealth history. 
Within the past fifteen years new shoots have 
sprung up from the venerable root. By the 
scent of water in the guise of a legislative 
appropriation, the noble old trunk has re- 
vived. The faculty is no longer represented 
by one white-haired man, nor are his auditors 
bodiless. 

But we have to do now with the shades, as 
real to our apprehension and more interest- 
ing than the flesh and blood of to-day. 

Opposite the President's house is a building 
of like proportions and architecture, known in 
those elder times as the Brafferton School. 
Sir Robert Boyle, the bosom friend of William 
Evelyn Byrd, of Westover, built and endowed 
it as an Indian seminary — a modest antitype 
of Hampton. Midway between these houses 
is the statue of Norborne Berkeley (Lord 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 479 

Botetourt), the best-beloved of the royal Gov- 
ernors. It is of Italian marble, and was 
erected in 1771. "America, behold your 
friend ! " exhorts one panel of the pedestal. 
Graceless boys and marauding military, alike 
regardless of the admonition, have mutilated 
what was really a noble work of art. The 
discolored features express, if anything, mild 
surprise, piteous in the circumstances, and the 
head has been rejoined awry to the neck, but 
there are remains of dignity in figure and 
attitude that make this solitary ornament of 
the college grounds congruous with the 
place. The solid silver coffin-plate, with his 
name and coronet engraved upon it, was stolen 
from the crypt under the college library dur- 
ing the civil war, and after its conclusion was 
returned anonymously to Williamsburg. 

The old Capitol was the other terminus of 
Duke of Gloucester Street. A few years ago 
the ruins were purchased by a corporation 
that pried out the very foundations, and bore 
them off to Newport News to be worked into 
commercial buildings. The straight, wide 
thoroughfare presented a gay pageant in the 
days of Botetourt, Fauquier, Dinwiddie, and 
Spotswoode — 



480 Some Colonial Homesteads 

'' an animated spectacle of coaches and t\)ur, contain- 
ing the ' nabobs ' and their dames ; of maidens in silk 
and lace, with high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings ; 
of youths passing on spirited horses — and all these 
people are engaged in attending the assemblies at the 
palace, in dancing at the Apollo " (in the famous Raleigh 
tavern, part of which is still standing) " in snatching the 
pleasure of the moment, and enjoying life under a 
regime which seems made for enjoyment." 

The winors of the palace remained until 
blown clown by the blasts of the civil war. The 
site is occupieci by a schoolhouse. From the 
cellar runs a subterranean c)-allery 1 50 yards in 
length, opening- into a funnel-shaped pit of 
substantial masonry. On each side of this is a 
walled chamber, capable of containing perhaps 
a dozen people. In the early spring-time nar- 
cissuses, jonquils, and crocuses fringe the 
mouth of the chasm. A clump of thorn-trees 
shades it. In the aee of Indian massacres, 
and rebellions many against powers that were 
to-day and might not be to-morrow, the engi- 
neerinof and toil that contrived the exit from 
the official mansion were not idly bestowed. 

The octagon powder magazine built in 1716, 
by the ablest of Colonial Governors, Alexander 
Spotswoode, recalls him less vividly than it 
awakens associations of the last and worst of 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 481 

the line of royal lieutenants. In the dim dawn 
of April 20, 1775, a party of marines stole 




OLD POWDER-HORN." 



across the palace green and Gloucester Street 
to the magazine, and before the Williamsbur- 
gers were astir, removed the ammunition to a 



4^2 Some Colonial Homesteads 

man-of-war lying in the offing. Two months 
later, Dunmore having been forced to surren- 
der the keys of the '' Old Powder Horn," 
some men entered and were wounded by a 
spring-gun tied to the door. Powder barrels 
were found secreted under the floor, and the 
tempest of popular hidlgnation at the discovery 
of the infernal plot, drove the Governor from 
Virginia and from America. 

Upon the steps of the Capitol on the day of 
the adjournment of the House of Burgesses that 
same year, three men lingered for a few part- 
ing words. The war-cloud was big upon the 
horizon. The vice-regal chariot and six cream- 
colored horses would never again flash along 
the long straight avenue ; there would be no 
more palace balls ; Thomas Jefferson, sandy- 
haired and awkward, had danced for the last 
time, "with Belinda at the Apollo." The 
glitter and glamour of the court had passed 
forever from the lowland town. Henry's war- 
cry, "Liberty or Death!" had been echoed 
by the "shot heard 'round the world." Wash- 
ington, as Commander-in-chief of Colonial 
forces, was in Boston. Richard Henry Lee, 
the most majestic of the three figures fancy 
poses for us upon the Capitol steps, wrote 
silently upon a pillar of the portico : 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 483 

" When shall we three meet again ? 
In thunder, lightning, and in rain ? 
When the hurly-burly 's done, 
When the battle 's lost and won." 

In 1779 the seat of government was re- 
moved to the comparatively insignificant 
village of Richmond, higher up the river. 
Williamsbure was too accessible to British 
cruisers, and too remote from Washington's 
lines. The measure stamped " Ichabod" upon 
the once haughty little capital. Dry-rot, 
stealthy and fatal, settled upon her pleasant 
places. 

The orhosts are faithful to it. Each house 
has its history, or yet more interesting tra- 
dition. 

In the drawing-room of Dr. J. D. Moncure 
(the able Superintendent of the Eastern Lun- 
atic Asylum, situated in Williamsburg) hangs 
the portrait of Mary Cary, renowned for 
beauty and belleship in a family where beauty 
is hereditary and pronounced. Her sister 
Sally became the wife of George William 
Fairfax, the near neio^hbor and intimate friend 
of George Washington. The oft-repeated 
tale that *' Sally" Cary was the first love of 
the Father of his Country is so effectually re- 
futed by a document courteously furnished to 



4^4 Some Colonial Homesteads 

me by her great-grandson, Dr. Moncure, that 
I naturally prefer his story to my own : 

" George William Fairfax, of Belvoir (Virginia), and 
Poulston, Yorkshire, England — married, December 17, 
1748, Sarah, second daughter of Colonel Wilson Gary, 
of Geleys, near Hampton, on James River. George 
Fairfax was the companion of Washington on his sur- 
veying tour for Lord Fairfax. Washington first met 
Mrs. Fairfax at Belvoir, near Mount Vernon, when she 
was brought home as the bride of George William Fair- 
fax. Miss Mary Gary accompanied her sister Sarah to 
Belvoir, and there met George Washington. She was 
then but fourteen years of age. Washington was only 
sixteen. . . . He had never visited the low country 
near Williamsburg prior to this, and therefore could not 
have met Sarah Gary until her marriage. It is said that 
he fell in love at sight with Mary Gary, and went so far, 
on his first visit to Williamsburg, as to ask Golonel Gary 
for the hand of his daughter." 

The big, raw-boned lad found scant favor 
in the eyes of the patrician planter. He was 
dismissed in terms so curt that we must bear 
in mind paternal pride and other extenuating 
circumstances if we would keep intact our idea 
of a fine old Viro^inia orentleman. 

" If that is your business here, sir, I wish 
you to leave the house. My daughter'' — the 
swelling emphasis rumbles down the corridor 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 485 

of years — " has been accustomed to ride in her 
own coach," 

Tradition asserts that the chagrined suitor 
took the choleric parent at his word, and that 
the next time he looked upon the face of 
his early love was when he passed through 
Williamsburor 6n his return from Yorktown 
after the surrender of Cornwallis. As we 
stroll down the spinal street, the window in 
the old Gary house is pointed out at which 
Mary Gary — now Mrs. Edward Ambler — 
stood to watch the parade. Washington looked 
up, recognized her, and waved a smiling salute 
with his sword, whereat the lady fainted. A 
becoming and not difficult feat at an era when 
to swoon opportunely and gracefully was a 
branch of feminine education. 

The incident rounds off the romance artisti- 
cally, and I am self-convicted of ungracious 
injury to the unities in introducing, at the de- 
mand of justice, rebutting testimony in a note 
from another descendant of the much-wooed 
Mary Gary : 

" Edward Ambler was about six feet in height, with a 
slender and remarkably genteel figure, and a fine, manly, 
expressive face. As he had mingled with the best society 
in Europe, it is not to be wondered at that his manners 



4^6 Some Colonial Homesteads 

were as polished as those of any nobleman in Englanc 
He was a man of great wealth and finished educatioi: 
and ardently attached to his wife, who found him ,.t}ie 
kindest and most indulgent husband in the world, ^^hy^v 
then, should she regret the step she had taken in clioos-^^ 
ing between him and his illustrious rival ? " '," j' 

Still another family paper mentions, " a^ a' 
curious fact, that the lady George Washington; 
afterwards married resembled Miss Gary : as^ 
much as one twin sister ever did another."' 
We look at the portrait upon Dr. Moncure's ' 
wall after all the evidence is in, unable, as wr 
confess, to trace the alleged resemblance be- 
tween the first and latest loves of the Nation's 
Benefactor. The turban or cap — a part, we' 
are told, of a fancy dress in which she chose 
to be painted — is disfiguring, hiding as it does, 
the contour of the cheeks and elongating the 
face, besides concealing most of the hair, which 
is chestnut and apparently abundant. The 
complexion is exquisite ; the eyes are dark 
blue. Mary Gary must have owed much to 
color, expression, and manner, if the limner 
did her justice, and if the stories of her sur- 
passing loveliness are true. Yet, as we gaze 
longer upon the fresh young face, we note the 
smooth, low brow, the spirited curve of the 




487 



MARY GARY. 

WASHINGTON'S FIRST LOVE. 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 489 

mouth, the fine oval of cheek and chin, and 
begin to comprehend the probability of the 
sway she held over the hearts of two of the 
finest men in the grand old Mother State. 

A letter, still extant, from Washington to a 
friend who had bantered him upon his admira- 
tion of Mrs. Custis, contp'ns this remarkable 
passage : 

'' You need no ease me about the beauti- 
ful widow. Yoti know very well whom I love." 

The orreat chieftain is a trifle more human 
to our apprehension for the rift in the granitic 
formation that grants us a glimpse of fire in 
the heart of the boulder. 

In the old Bruton parish church (founded 
in 1632) we are shown the gray marble font 
from which Pocahontas was baptized. The 
building is smaller now than in the times of 
the royal Governors, by the depth of the room 
cut off from the rear of the altar. In this 
room is the royal gallery where sat the repre- 
sentative of the Crown, his family, and sub- 
officers, during divine service. A door at the 
back was the private entrance to what corre- 
sponded in the provinces with the royal "closet " 
in English chapel or cathedral. That shabby 
little door opened Sunday after Sunday for 



490 Some Colonial Homesteads 

one year to let pass into the gallery such fine 
folk as " the Right Honorable the Countess 
of Dunmore, with Lord Fincastle, the Honor- 
able Alexander and John Murray, and the 
Ladies Catherine, Augusta, and Susan Mur- 
ray." 

From a visitor at the palace we hear that 
" Lady Dunmore is a very elegant woman. 
Her daughters are fine, sprightly, sweet girls. 
Goodness of heart flashes from them in every 
look." That was the eighteenth-century Jen- 
kins manner of speaking of the occupants of 
the royal ''closets." We volunteer surmises 
as to who filled this particular post of honor 
upon June i, 1774, the memorable fast-day 
when all the worshippers wore mourning, and 
the text of the sermon was, ''Help, Lord ! for 
t lie godly man ccascth, for tJic faithful fail from 
among the children of nieni' Lady Dunmore 
and her daughters may have had their dish of 
taxed tea that evening. No true lover of her 
country and liberty touched or tasted the 
banned thing. 

In the hospitable homestead of Mrs. Cyn- 
thia Tucker Coleman, not far away from the 
church, is a portrait of Pocahontas's greatest 
descendant, John Randolph of Roanoke. It 



k 




Jamestown and Williamsburg 493 

represents him at the age of thirty, at which 
date he was in Congress. The likeness is as 
gentle-eyed and sweet of face as that of an 
amiable boy of seventeen. Pale brown hair, 
with auburn lights in it, falls low on the fore- 
head. There is not a token, in the serene, 
contemplative visage and clear eyes, of the 
morbid wretchedness of which bitter cynicism 
was the mask. In the same dwelling is kept 
the silver communion service used in the 
Jamestown church as far back as 1661. It 
bears the inscription, in English and Latin, 
'^ Mix not holy things with profaned There is 
also a service presented to " Christ Church, 
Bruton Parish," by Queen Anne, who, a 
chronicler affirms, " loved her college." 

In this home, now tenanted by his gr.©at- 
half-niece, John Randolph passed much of his 
early life. One of the fairest pictures con- 
jured up by the magic wand of tradition is 
that of his beautiful mother — whose portrait 
faces his from the opposite wall — wearing wid- 
ow's weeds, and kneeling, with a pretty boy 
beside her, "his fresh face pressed against her 
black gown, in the picturesque old church in 
Williamsburg during a special service of fast- 
ing and prayer " ; which special occasion, we 



494 Some Colonial Homesteads 

choose to believe, was the same referred to, 
just now, when the fearless patriot cried from 
the pulpit to the God of armies for help. 
Mother and child were seen thus by a young 
Bermudian, an alumnus of William and Mary, 
who strayed into the sanctuary, and, in the 
graceful phrase of his great-grandson, Mr. 
Charles Washington Coleman, from whom we 
have the story, "found that love at first sight 
was as possible then as in ' the still-vexed Ber- 
moothes ' of The Tempest." He made the 
acquaintance of his charmer, declared his pas- 
sion, and, after a while, was rewarded with her 
heart and hand. Writing about it fifty years 
afterwards, he said, " I thought I had never 
seen so beautiful a woman or so beautiful a 
child." 

" Thus St. Geortre Tucker, when an old 
man, Professor of Law in William and Mary, 
and a Judge of the United States Court, re- 
corded his first meeting with his distinguished 
stepson." 

John Randolph found in him the kindest, 
most indulgent of stepfathers. 

One of the notable figures of old Williams- 
burg society was known to the day of her 
death as " Lady Christina Stuart," although 




JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOKE, (aT THE AGE OF 30). 

FROM ORIGINAL PORTRAIT BY GILBERT STUART. 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 497 

married to Mr. John Griffin, and with him a 
pilgrim in the New World. Descended from 
the royal Stuart line, she possessed beauty of 
a high order, and tales of her stateliness are as 
numerous as those of her piety and charity. 
Another dame of high degree was " Lady " 
Skipworth, a daughter of the third William 
Byrd, of Westover, and niece of " the fair 
Evelyn " whose tragic love-story is a favorite 
theme with tide-water racontciirs. Linger- 
ing by the neglected burying-ground in which 
she lies, we hearken, not faithless, not alto- 
gether credulous, to the tale of her restless 
flittings in white attire from room to room of 
an ancient mansion in which she died. 

Seated in the cosy parlor of a yet older 
house, face to face with the sweet-faced, sweet- 
toned mistress, we cjuite believe the recital 
given by the voice — whose modulations are 
like " the music of Carryl " to ears once familiar 
with the slow ripple of Virginia speech — of the 
click of high heels that echoes along the hall 
to the door of the apartment in which we are 
now seated, and that the door flies open as 
the footfalls reach it, — a phenomenon so often 
repeated that the occurrence excites no alarm, 

scarcely remark, among the visible inmates of 
32 



49^"^ Sonic Colonial Homesteads 

the dwcllini;'. Sometimes the wearer of the 
hii^h-heeled slippc'rs walks in broad daylight, 
but usually at niL;ht. All attempts to fathom 
thc^ mystery have been fruitless. The accus- 
tomed ears of our hostess have supplied other 
senses with a vivid conception of what manner 
of o;;host is tlu: uncpiiet visitant. '1 he fe(.:t are 
small, she is sure ; the tread is lii^ht, with the 
buoyancy of youth ; tht! carriage is hii^h-brecl. 
The '' ta]) ! tap!" of the daint)' heels begins 
at the back of the wide; hall, and moves stead- 
ily to the door ; obcxlicMit to her touch, the 
door is oi)ened, as by the eai^er hand of an 
expectant lover, — then all is silent. Did the 
namelc^ss " she " meet her fate upon the thresh- 
old ? or does she still seek and pursue it? 

An up[)er chamber is liaunted by a youn*^ 
Frenchman, one of Rochambeau's officers, who 
died here durini^ the Revolutionary war, the 
house beino- in use then by Washini^ton and 
othcTS in hioji command. The apartment 
across the hall from the foreii^ner's death-room, 
has periodical visitations upon the anniversary 
of the clecc^ase of Chancellor Wythe, who once 
owned and lived in the mansion. He was 
done to his death by poison adniinisterecl by 
his nephew. At the hour and on the niij^ht in 



Jamestown and Williamsburg 499 

which he breathed his last, a closet door un- 
closes, an icy wind pours forth, and a cold 
hand is passed over the face of whomsoever 
may be the occupant of the bed. More than 
one sceptic has be^^ed for and obtained per- 
mission to sleep in the chamber upcjn tlie 
anniversary, but none has ever cared to repeat 
the experiment. 

They are, one and all, [nmctilious j^hosts, 
the smiling narrator adds, never encroaching- 
upon each other's beats, behavior becoming 
Rochambeau's contemporary, the dainty dame 
of the clicking tread, and the courtly Chancel- 
lor. A house upon the same side of the 
street is as affluent in disembodied residents 
or guests, offering, as it does, especial facilities 
for their occupation and entertainment in a 
double roof and divers secret chambers, one 
of which was but recently discovered. 

All this well-attested ghost-lore does not 
touch our hearts or quicken our fancy as does 
one small pane of glass in a pleasant home 
across the way from the double-roofed domi- 
cile. The room is not large, and somewhat 
secluded, looking out upon a side-garden. 
Lilac-bushes, mossy with age, shade the lower 
part of the window. It is just the nook that 



500 Some Colonial Homesteads 

would be selected for lonely musing or silent 
weeping by love-sick girl or stricken woman. 
We can see the mourner leaning her forehead 
against the sash as she writes with her diamond 
ring upon the glass : 

'' lygd. Nor. 2j. ^IJi, fatal day !'' 

Tradition is duml) as to the trembling record, 
— silence we hardly regret. 

A young girl, who might be the double of 
what the sad writer was before the fatal 
shadow swallowed up the light of her world, 
offers to trace a fac-simile of the piteous 
legend upon tissue-paper for me, and I watch 
her intent face and slender fingers with a grow- 
ing pain I cannot define, only that it goes with 
thoughts of other fingers — still and pulseless 
long ago — and of the old story that is never 
trite, — of love, of loss, and heart-break. 

She who does me the favor does not know 
why I cannot smile in thanking her for her 
goodness to the stranger within her gates. 
As I might handle a sentient thing, I fold the 
bit of paper, and lay it gently between the 
leaves of the note-book that records, after all, 
but little that we have seen, heard and felt 
during our sojourn in the dear old town where 
ghosts walk. 



INDEX 



Adams, John, iir, 326 
Adams, John Quincy, 9S, 326 
Albany, 152, 153, 154, 175,187, 

201, 202, 254, 255 
Allen, Abigail, 410 
Allen, Edward, 407 
Alston, Colonel, 24 
Ambh.T, Edward, 94, 277,485 
Anil;ler, Jaquelin, 94 
Ambler, Mary, 95 
Ambler, Mary Willis, 94, 95 
Ambler, Richard, 94 
Amblers, The, 90, 94, 97, 473 
Ambroise, 419 
Amrusus, 419 

Anderson, Major Richard, 97 
Anderson, Major Roljert, 97 
Andre, Major John, 116, 118, 

119, 122 
Andre, Lieutenant William 

Lewis, 116 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 175, 202, 

203 
Antigua, 15 

Appamatuck, Queen of, 433 
Arbuthnot, 47 

Argall, Ca])tain Samuel, 448, 468 
Argyle, Duke of, 23 
Armistead, Judith, 71 
Arnold, Benedict, 6, 55, 79, 117, 

266, 267 
Arnold, iMrs. Benedict, 267 



B 



Bacon, Nathaniel, 474, 475 

Baker, Miss Alice, 384 

Hallston Spa, 300 

Bard, Dr., 184 

Barrack llill, 149, 152 

Battery, The, T95 

Bayard, Nicholas, 175, 244, 279 

Beck, 'J\ Romeyn, 182 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 141 

Bellamy, Rev. Dr., 340 

Belleville (N. J.), 162 

Bellomont, Richard Coote, Earl 
of, 207, 208, 241, 242, 243, 
246, 247, 248, 249, 250 

Belvoir, 261, 484 

Berkeley, 50, 53, Oo, hi, 62, 69, 

73 
Berkeley, Carter, 64 
Berkeley, Lady Frances, 474 
Berkeley, Sir William, 105, 473, 

474 
Bermuda Hundred, 70 
Bethlehem (l*enn.), 132, 135 
lieverley, 258, 265, 267, 273, 

279 
Beverwyck, 202 
]>land, Theodorick, 33 
Blount, Martha, 31, 38 
liluff, Drewry's, 56 
lifjgardus, Everardus, 172, 245 
Bogart, David, 305, 311 
Bonaparte, Jerome, 322 



501 



502 



Index 



Bonaparte, Joseph, 289, 321 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 289, 290, 

293 
Boutetourt, Lord, 479 
Bouwerie, The Dominie's, 172, 

173 
Bouillon, Godfrey of, 351 
Bowen, Eliza, 286, 306 
Boyle, Charles, 54 
Boyle, Sir Robert, 478 
Braddock, General, 262, 276 
Brandon, Lower, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 

14, 19, 25, 27, 32, 37 
Brandon, Martin's, 2 
Brandon, Upper, 27, 29, 37, 73 
Brant, Joseph, 184, 187 
Braxton, Carter, 64 
Brid, Le, 34 
Bridge, King's, 239 
Brockholls, Anthony, 161, 162, 

163, 169. 254 
Brockholls, Joanna, 254 
Burgesses, House of, 66, 105, 4S2 
Burlington (N. J.), 112 
Burr, Aaron, 296, 299, 300, 301, 

302, 304, 305, 307, 308, 311, 

313, 314, 318, 322, 326 
Burr, Mrs., 315, 316, 317, 318, 

320 
Burr, Theodosia, 184 
Burwell, Rebecca, 94 
Butler, General, 10 
Byrd Coat-of-Arms, 34 
Byrd, Evelyn, 24, 38, 43, 45, 47, 

51, 52, 83, 497 
Byrd, George L., 27 
Byrd, Mrs., 55, 77, 7S. 79 
Byrds, The, 33 
Byrd, William (i), 34, 37, 52 
Bvrd, William (2) Evelyn, 16, 23, 

'24, 25, 34, 37, 38, 39, 41, 47, 

57, 255 
Byrd, Colonel William {3), 53, 

54, 56, 76, 497 



Caghonowaga, 41 8 
Caldwell, James, 187 



Carrington, Mrs. Edward, 95 
Carter, Charles, 76 
Carter Coat-of-Arms, 66 
Carter, Elizabeth Hill, 53, 76, 

81 
Carter, Hill, of Shirley, 64 
Carter, John, 66, 69, 75 
Carter, Robert ("King"), 66, 

67, 69, 70 
Carter, Robert Randolph, 75 
Carters, The, 2, 70, 75 
Gary, Mary, 94, 277, 483, 4S4, 

4S5, 4S6 
Gary, " Sally," 483, 484 
Castle Philipse, 240 
Catskill, 202 

Caughnawaga, 419, 426, 430 
Chamberlayne, William, 34 
Chamblee, 393, 398 
Champ ney House and Studio, 

427 

Champney, Mrs. Elizabeth Wil- 
liams, 384, 385, 388 

Charles L, 105 

Chastelleux, Marquis de, 79, 290 

Chester, Bishop of, 425 

Chesterfield, Lord, 238 

Chew, Anne, 107 

Chew, Anne Penn, T26, 129 

Chew, I^enjamin, 108, 109, 112, 
113, 116, 121, 125 

Chew, Benjamin, Jr., 125 

Chew, Beverly, 130 

Chew Coach, 130 

Chew Coat-of-Arms, 105 

Chew, John, 106 

Chew, Joseph, 130 

Chew, " Peggy," 116, 117, 118, 
J 20 

Chew, Samuel, 106 

Chew, Dr. Samuel, 107 

Chickahominy, The, 432 

Church, Benjamin, 383 

City Hall, Yonkers, 268 

City Point (Va.), 70 

Clarendon, Lord, 212 

Claypole, Elizabeth, 23 

Clermont, 216, 222, 227, 250 



Index 



503 



Clinton, " Caty," 181, 195, 196 
Clinton, Governor George, 181, 

255 
Cliveden, 104, iii, 113. 114, 116, 

1 18, 122, 125, 126, 127 
Codwise, David, 343 
Coleman, Charles Washington, 

494 
Coleman, Mrs. Cynthia Tucker, 

490 
Colfax, Ester, 163, 165, 170 
Colfax, George, 169 
Colfax, Lieutenant, 165, 170 
Colfax, Schuyler, 169 
Colfax, Dr. William Schuyler, 

162, 170 
Colfax, Dr. W. W., 149, 169 
Cooke, Rose Terry, 413 
Cooper, Fenimore, 60 
Cornwallis, Lord, 55, 79 
Corotoman, 69 
Crafts, Alexander, 221 
Cromwell, Oliver, 376 
Cromwell, Thomas, 376 
Cromwell, '''alias Williams," 

377 
Croton, 177, 178. 250 
Cubieres, Marquis de, 290 
Cumberland, Fort, 53 
Curtis, George William. 410 
Custis, George Washington 

Parke, 135, 136 
Custis, Nelly, 135 
Custis, The Widow, 277 



D 



Dale, Sir Thomas, 64, 447, 449, 
451, 452, 453, 459, 460, 4^>i, 
462, 473 

Dartmouth, Lord, 212 

Deerfield (Massachusetts), 378, 

379, 383. 384, 3B5, 392, 393, 
396, 403, 404, 407, 408, 409, 
410, 411, 416, 418, 429, 430 
De Joinville, Prince, 289, 321 
De la Warr, Lord, 447, 456, 472 
De Lancey, 175, 279 



De Lauzun, 178 

De Maudit, Chevalier de, 114 

De Peyster, Catherine, 176, 195 

De Peysters, 250, 279 

De Rogers, 419 

Deshler, Catherine, 137 

Deshler, David, 131, 132, 137 

Deshler Place, 137 

Dividing Line, 25 

Dorchester (Massachusetts), 346, 

347. 348, 349, 351, 352, 382 
Drewry, Major A. H., 56, 58, 

60 
Dudley, His Excellency, Joseph, 

388, 417 
Dudley, Mr. William, 417 
Dunbar, Rev. John, 52 
Dunmore, Lady, 490 
Dunmore, Lord, 482, 490 
Dyckhuyse, Swantie, 156 



E 



Earle-Cliff, 325 

Earle, General Ferdinand Pin- 

ney, 325 
Eels, Mrs., 407 
Elphinstone, Lord, 178 
Ercole, Alcide, 322 
Esopus, 155 
Evelynton, 52 
Everett, Edward, 12 



Fairfax, George William, 483, 

484 
Fairfax, Sarah Gary, 261, 483, 

484 
Federal Rock, 142 
Ffrench, Thomas, 407 
Fillmore, Millard, 11,19 
Flagg, Ethan, 273, 275 
Fletcher, Governor, 245 
Fort Washington, 282, 285, 288, 

292, 308 
Fountleroy, Colonel Moore, 66 
Frankford, 136 



504 



Index 



Franklin, Benjamin, 24, 54, 17S 
Franks, Colonel Isaac, 132, 135 
Fredericksburg (Va.), 112 
Fulton, Robert, 238 



Gay, The Poet, 47 
Geer, Mrs. Gertrude, 339 
Germantown (Penn.), 131, 132, 

135 
" Ghost-room," The,- 195, 197 
Gooch, Governor, 258 
Grahame, James, 242 
Green Bay (Wisconsin), 426 
Greenfield (Massachusetts), 395 
Green River, 395, 430 
Green Spring, 474 
Greenway, Ann, 348, 361, 365, 

366 
Greenway, John, 348, 365 
Griffin, Mr. John, 497 
Grolier Club, The, 130 



H 



Hamilton, Alexander, 181, 266 

296, 326 
Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, 181, 

326 
Hamor, Master Ralph, 449, 461 
Harlem, 314 
Harlem Heights, 262, 265, 277, 

279, 292, 300 
Harrison, Mrs. Anne, 50 
Harrison, Benjamin, of Berke- 
ley, 5, 24, 54, 69 
Harrison, Major Charles Shirley, 

27 
Harrison, George Evelyn, 8, 26 
Harrison, Mrs. Isabella, 8, 10, 

II, 14, 19, 27 
Harrison, Miss, 25, 56 
Harrison, Nathaniel, 5, 7 
Harrison, William Byrd, 27 
Harrison, Mrs. William Byrd, 

31 



Harrison, General William 
Henry, 18, 62 

Harrisons, The, of Berkeley and 
Brandon, 2, 50, 53 

Harvie, General Jaquelin Bur- 
well, 87 

Hatcher, William, 65 

Hatfield (Massachusetts), 392, 
393 

Havves, Samuel Pierce, 355 

Hening, 33 

Henry, Patrick, 469, 4S2 

Henry, Hon. William Wirt, 469 

Hill, "Sir " Edward, 65, 66, 69, 

75 
Hill, General, 413 
Hingham, 327 
Hinman, Colonel, 330 
Hogg Island, T05 
Homewood, 105 
Horsemander, Wareham, 52, 69 
Hotspur, Harry, 351 
Howard, Colonel John Eager, 

121, 122, 123 
Howards, The Baltimore, 119 
Howe, The American General, 

145 
Howe, Sir William, 116 
Hunter, Governor, 212 



Ingleby, Lady Frances, 5 



James I., 105 

James River, The, i, 2, 3, 4, 14, 

55, 63, 105, 130 
Jamestown, 105, 439, 440, 441, 

442, 448, 449, 451, 453. 476 
Jans, " The Widow," 172 
Jansen, Anneke, 172, 173 * 
Jansen, Rolef, 202 
Japazaws, 448, 449 
Jaquelin, Edward, 94 
Jaquelins, The, 473 



ED 7ft^ 



Index 



505 



Jefferson, Thomas, 5, 94, 326, 

482 
Josephine, The Empress, 293, 

294 
Jumel House, 305, 309 
Jumel, Madame, 2S8, 290, 291, 

293, 296, 299, 301, 302, 303, 

304, 306, 307, 311, 313, 322, 

324, 326 
Jumel, Stephen, 285, 286, 2S7, 

288, 289, 291, 293, 295, 300, 

311, 317, 326 
Jumels, The, 321 



K 



Kent, Chancellor, 318 

Kidd, Captain William, 208, 

243, 246, 247, 248, 249 
Kieft, Wilham, 171 
Kightewanke Creek, 174 
King's Bridge, 239 
King's College, 256 
King's Highway, 141 
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 17, 39, 45 
Knox, General, 113, 326 



Lafayette, 15, 129, 181, 266 
Lancaster County, 66 
Laud, Archbishop, 105 
Laurens, Colonel, 114 
Lawson, Sir Wilfred, 38 
Lee, Annie Carter, 70 
Lee, Arthur, 55 

Lee, "Light-Horse Harry," 70 
Lee, Richard Henry, 482 
Lee, Robert E., 70 
Leigh, Benjamin Watkins, loi 
Leisler, Colonel, 154 
Lincoln, Abraham, 10 
Linlithgow, 201, 202, 213, 230 
" Livengus," 201 
Livingston, Clermont, 222 
Livingston, George of Linlith- 
gow, 201 



Livingston, Gertrude (Alida), 

20 r, 209 
Livingston, Gilbert Robert, 335 
Livingston, Henry, 216 
Livingston, Herman (i), 213, 

222, 233 
Livingston, Herman (2), 219 
Livingston, Joanna, 176, 191, 

192 
Livingston, John, 216, 222, 223, 

225, 227, 228, 230 
Livingston, John Henry, 222 
Livingston Manor, 201, 213, 216, 

219, 221, 222, 234 
Livingston, " Messer John," 202 
Livingston, Philip, 216, 217, 226 
Livingston, Robert C, 216 
Livingston, Robert, Jr., 216 
Livingston, Robert Tong, 221, 

222 
Livingston, Robert (the First 

Lord of the Manor), 201, 202, 

204, 205, 207, 208, 211, 212, 

219, 221, 233, 237, 243, 246, 

248, 249, 343 
Livingston, Sarah, Lady Stirling, 

226 
Livingstons, The, 242, 250, 279 
Livingston, Walter, 216 
Longmeadow (Massachusetts), 

415, 421, 422 
Loockermans, Annetje, 173 
Lovelace, 173 
Low, Cornelius P., 267 



M 



Madagascar, 243, 244, 247 
Mahopac, Lake, 265, 279 
Malvern Hills, 70 
Mandeville, 149 
Manhattan, Island of, 173, 267 
Manor, Van Cortlandt, 174, 175 
Manor-House, The Van Cort- 
landt, 171, 176, 178, 179, 180, 
183, 195, 199 
Marlborough, Duke of, 15 
Marriner, " Farmer," 282, 285 



So6 



Index 



Marshall, Chief-Justice, John, 

84, 85, 86, SB, 89, 93, 94, 95, 

96, 296 
Marshall House, The, 85, 86 
Marshall, Mrs., 97, 98 
Martin, John, 2, 7 
Mary and John, The. 346, 357, 

365 
Maryland, 106 
Massachusetts, 327, 346, 349, 

361, 369, 370. 375, 37S, 382, 

403, 415, 422, 425 
Massassoit, 379 
Mather, Rev. Eleazar, 396 
Mather, Eunice, 382, 410 
Mather, Esther. 396 
Mather, Richard. 3S2 
Mathews, Rev. John Rutherford, 

1S3 
Mathews. Mrs. John Rutherford, 

191, 192 
Mayo. Major, 42 
McClenachan. Blair, 125 
Meacham, Rev. Joseph, 417, 421 
Meeting-House Hill, 353 
Metacomet. 379 
Milborne. Captain, 154 
Minot House, 347 
" Mischianza," The, 116, 117, 

122 
Moncure, Dr. J. D., 4S3. 484, 

486 
Montague, Charles, Earl of Hali- 
fax. 24 
Monticello, 6 
Monroe. Fort, lo, ir 
Mordaunt, Charles, 47 
Mordaunts. The, 49 
Morris, Elliston Perot, 131. 139, 

140 
Morris, Governor Samuel, 139, 

140 
Morris, Henry Gage, 2S3 
Morris House, The, 131, 133, 137 
Morris, Roger, 262, 26S, 276. 

277, 279, 280. 282 
Morris, Mrs. Roger, 265, 273, 

277, 285, 324 



Morristown (N. J.), 141, 142, 

145 
Morristown Road, 150, 151 
Moseley, Abigail, 365 
Moseley, Sarah, 370 
Mo watt, Anna Cora. 20 



X 



Nanfran. Lieutenant-Governor. 

208 
Nansemond County, 66 
Napoleon I..2S9, 290, 293, 317, 

324 
Napoleon, Louis, 2S9, 321 
Napoleon, Prince ("Plon-Plon"), 

322 
New Amsterdam. 171, 172 
New Jersey, 141, 156, 157, 161 
New York City, 130. 131, 172, 
227, 243, 245, 247, 250, 254, 
256, 258, 261, 262, 273, 276, 
2S6, 291, 299, 301, 306. 314 
Nicholson, Sir Francis, 476 
Norfolk, 2, 70 
Norfolk, Upper. 66. 
Norton, Charles Eliot, 410 



Oak Hill, upon Livingston 
Manor, 201, 216, 222, 226, 
227. 228, 231. 233, 234, 238 

Opechancanough, 61.432 



Page, Major Mann, 14 

Page, Mann, of Timberneck, 69 

Page of Pagebrook, 53 

Pagerie, de la, 293 

Palace, Williamsburg, 97 

Palatines, 211. 212, 213, 216 

Parke, Colonel Daniel, 15, 16, 17, 

34,3s 
Parke, Lucy, 44 
Passaic County, 157 
Passaic River, 157 



Index 



507 



Patawomekes, The, 474 

Paulding, J. R., 11 

Paulet, Sir John, 33 

Peale, Rembrandt, 75 

Pearce, Richard, 347 

Peirce, Frederick Clifton, 347 

Peirce, Professor J. M., 346 

Penn, John, 112 

Penn, William, 129 

Pennsylvania, 107, loS 

Percie, Master Cieorge, 351,451, 

473 

Percys, The, of Northumber- 
land, 351 

Perot, Huguenot, 131 

Peterborough, Lord, 47, 48 

Philadelphia, 108,111, 120, 131, 
132, 133 

PhiHp, King, 379, 383 

Philipse, Eva, 250 

Philipse, Frederick (1), 239, 243, 
248, 249. 250 

Philipse, Frederick (2), 250, 253, 
255, 258 

Philipse, Frederick (3), 256, 257, 
265 

Philipse, Manor-IIouse, 239, 240, 

251, 253, 255, 256, 262, 2()7, 

268, 272, 273, 276, 278 
Philipse, Mary, 261, 262 
Philipse, My Lady, 249 
Philipse, Philip, 249 
Philipse, Susan. 257 
Phillips, General, 6 
Pierce, Abigail Thompson, 352, 

354, 362 
Pierce, Hon. Andrew, 370 
Pierce, Ann, 357 
Pierce, Hon. Benjamin, 370 
Pierce Crest, 346 
Pierce, Elizabeth, 357 
Pierce, Elizabeth How^, 358 
Pierce, General E. W., 369 
Pierce, George Francis, 374 
Pierce, President Franklin, 370 
Pierce, Henry of Brookline, 370 
Pierce Homestead, 346, 349 
Pierce, John (i), 347 



Pierce ]olm (2), 352, 3^3, 362, 

366 " 
Pierce, Rev. John, 370 
Pierce, Lewis, 370, 374 
Pierce, Lewis Francis, 370, 373, 

374 
Pierce, Hon. Oliver, 370 
Pierce, Robert, 346, 347, 34S, 

35', 365. 366 
Pierce, Samuel (i), 352, 365 
Pierce, Samuel (2), 355 
Pierce, Samuel (3), 355 
Pierce, Colonel Samuel (4), 355, 

.357, 358. 359, 366, 369, 374 
Pierce, Colonel Thomas Went- 

worth, 370 
Pierce, William Augustus, 374 
Pocahontas, 61, 64, 432. 434, 

436, 439, 441, 443, 444, 44^', 

447, 4-18, 449, 454, 457, 4^'i, 

466, 469, 472 _ 
Pocomptuck Indians, 37S 
Pocomptuck Village, 379, 3S5 
Pompiton Indians, 151 
Pompton (N. J.), 141, 142, 145, 

146, 149, 161, 162 

Pompton Plains, 151 

Pope, Alexander, 31 

Pope, General, 55 

Port Richmond, 319 

Potomacs, The, 447, 44S, 450 

Powhatan, The Emperor, 70,432, 
433, 434, 439, 44i, 442, 443, 
449, 450, 452, 456, 460, 466, 

467, 470, 473, 477 
Powhatan River, i 
Presque Isle, 2 

Provost, Mrs. Theodosia, 305 
Purchas, 469 



Quebec, 391, 401, 417 
Queen Street Mansion, 250 



Ramapo Lake, 145 
Ramapo River, 146 



5o8 



Index 



Randolph, John of Roanoke, 

490, 493, 494, 495 
Randolphs, The, 2 
Ratcliffe, President, 446, 473 
Read, Mrs. William, 122 
Rebecca, The Lady, 465, 466, 

468, 472 
Red Mill, The, 265 
Reed, Adjutant-General, 281 
Richmond, Virginia, i, 8, 70, 76, 

84, 97, 296, 462, 483 
Ritchie, Dr., 8, 9, 10 
Ritchie, Thomas, 8 
Ritchie, Miss Virginia, ii 
Ritchie, William Foushee, 20 
Robinson, Colonel Beverley, 257, 

258, 261, 266, 267, 277 
Robinson, Frederick, 25S 
Robinson, Colonel William, 5 
Rochambeau, 178 
Rolfe, John, 64, 453, 455,456, 

461, 462, 465, 466, 468, 472, 

474 
Rolfe, Thomas, 469 
Rouville, Major Hertel de, 386 
Ruffin, F. G., 86 
Rufhn, Mrs. F. G., 87 
Rutgers College, 181 



S 



San Domingo, 285 

Saratoga, 300 

Schuyler, Captain Abraham, 155 

Schuyler, Adoniah, 157, 158, 161 

Schuyler, Alida (van), 201 

Schuyler, Arent (i), 154, 155, 

156, i6t, 162 
Schuyler, Arent (2), 157, 158, 

161 
Schuyler, Casparus, 163 
Schuyler, Cornelius, 161 
Schuyler, Ester, 163 
Schuyler and Colfax Houses, 

141 
Schuyler Homestead, Pompton, 

N. J., 159 



Schuyler, Johannes (John), 153, 
j 418, 419, 420, 421 
Schuyler, Margritta, 152, 154, 

155 
I Schuyler, Peter, 153, 154, 155, 

163 
Schuyler, General Philip, 181 
Schuyler, Pliilip Petersen, (i) 

152, 155, 175, 201 
Schuyler, Philip (2), 157, i6t, 

162 
Schuyler, " The Widow," 154, 

156, 163 
Schuyler, Van, 175 
Schuylers, The, 242 
Selyus, Henricus, 241, 245 
Six Nations, 255 
Shaccoa's, 26, 43 
Sharon (Connecticut), 327, 329 
Sharon, Meeting- House, 330, 
. 332 

Sheldon, Rev. George, 3S5 
Sheldon House, 38 7 
Sheldon, Captain John, 387, 407 
Sheldon, Mrs. John, 387, 430 
Shippen, Chief-Justice, 117 
Shippen, Margaret, 117 
Shirley, 2, 63, 64, 69, 73, 74, 

75,83 
Shirley, Sir Thomas, 64 
Shirley, West, 64 
Shrewsbury, 247 
Skinner, Cortlandt, 261 
Skipworth, " Lady," 497 
Smith, Cotton Mather, 328, 329, 

330. 332, 333 
Smith, Gilbert Livingston (i), 

335, 336 
Smith, Gilbert Livingston (2), 

339 
Smith, Helen Evertson, 331, 

339, 344, 345 
Smith, Helen Livingston, 335, 

344 
Smith, Henry, 327 
Smith Homestead, 327, 337 
Smith, Ichabod, 328 
Smith, Jerusha Mather, 328 



Index 



509 



Smith, Captain John, 73, 351, 
432, 433, 435. 436, 439, 440, 
441, 442, 444, 446, 447, 465, 
466, 467, 473, 475 

Smith, Governor John Cotton, 
332, 334, 340 

Smith, Rev. John Cotton, D.D., 
331 

Smith, John Cotton, Jr., 335 

Smith, Madame Temperance 
Worthington, 328, 331, 332, 
336, 344 

Smith, Margaret Evertson, 334, 
3-43 

Smith, Robert Worthington, 335, 
336 

Smith, Rev. Roland Cotton, 331 

Smith, Samuel, 328 

Smith, William Mather, 334 

Smith's (John)Coat-of-Arms, 432 

Smith's (Sharon) Crest, 327 

Somers, 247 

Southwell, Sir Robert, 24 

Spotswood, Governor Alex- 
ander, 5, 480 

Staatje (Little Village), 213, 228, 
238 

Stafford, 105 

Stanhope, Philip, 238 

Steuben, 178 

Stevenson, Anne, 181, ig6 

Stevenson, John, 181 

Stirling, Lord, 142, 226 

Stoddard, Captain John, 3S7, 
392,413,418 

Stone, Dr., 10 

Stone, Mrs., 10 

Stuart, Lady Christina, 464 

Stuckly, Sir Lewis, 469 

Stuyvesant, 171 

Sunnybank, 146, 151 



Talleyrand, 289 

Tamaranachqua;, 204 

Taylor, Captain John, 195, 196 



Taylor, Maria, 37 
Teller, Jenneke, 155, 156 
Terhune, Rev. Dr., 146 
Tew, Thomas, 245 
Thompson, Rev. William, 352 
Thorpe, George, 61 
Torlonia, Prince, 323 
Towowa, 164 
Tryon, Cjovernor, 177, 178 
Tuckahoe, 2 
Tyler, John, 11 



U 



Union Iron Works, 112 



Van Buren, John, 220 
Van Blum, Admiral, 334 
Van Cortlandt, Abram, 177 
Van Cortlandt, Miss Anne 

Stevenson, 182 
Van Cortlandt, Mrs. Anne 

Stevenson, 181, 196 
Van Cortlandt, " Caty " Clinton, 

181, 195, 196 
Van Cortlandt, Mrs. Catherine 

E., 182, 187, 188, 199 
Van Cortlandt Coat-of-Arms, 171 
Van Cortlandt, Gilbert, 192 
Van Cortlandt, Captain James 

Stevenson, 183 
Van Cortlandt, Joanna Living- 
ston, 179, 180, 188, 191, 192 
Van Cortlandt, John, 177, 184 
Van Cortlandt Manor-House, 

171, 174, 176, 179, 180, 1S3, 

185, 250 
Van Cortlandt, " Nancy," 192 
Van Cortlandt, Olaf Stevense, 

171, 172, 173, 176, 244 
Van Cortlandt, Philip (i), 176, 

177, 184, 192 
Van Cortlandt, Philip (2), 177, 

180, 187 



sio 



Index 



Van Cortlandt, Philip (Stephen': 

son). 17S 
Van Cortlandt, Pierre (i), 176 

177, 179. 1S4, iSS. 191. 192 
Van Cortlandt, Pierre (2), iSi 

195, 196 
Van Cortlandt, Pierre (^), 177 

181 
Van Cortlandt, Stephen. 177 
\'an Cortlandts, The. 153. 200 

242, 250, 279 
Vandreuil, Marquis de, 419 
\andyke, 31, 3S 
Van Rensselaer, Philip Schuy 

ler, T92 
Van Rensselaers, The. 153 
Van vSchuyier, 154 
Van Wagenen, Hendrick Car 

ritse, 157, 162 
Varina, 432, 456. 462 
Verplancks, The, 153 
Virginia, i, 5, S, 25, 34, 3S, 53 

62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70 

73, 84, 87, lOi, 105, 106, 112 

258, 261, 277. 436, 447. 461 

482 



W 



Walker, Admiral, 413 
\Valn, Jesse, 136 
Walthoe, Mister, 24 
Ward. Sophia Howard, 115 
War ham. Rev. John, 38 2 
Warner, Charles Dudley, 410 
Washington, Fort, 262, 288, 292, 

308 
Washington, George, 53, 75, 
III, 115, 121, 132, 135, 136, 
137, 139, 140, 142, 145, 150, 
164, 170, 17S, 179, 225, 256, 
261, 262, 265, 266, 267, 271, 
272. 277, 280, 281, 2S2. 326, 
471. 4S2, 483, 4S4. 485, 4S6. 
487 
Washington Heights, 306, 325, 
326 



Washington's Headq'trs (Pomp- 
ton, X. J.), 142. 143, 151 

Washington, Lady, 135, 137, 
150. 170, 2S2. 326 

Werowocomoco, 432, 433, 435, 
442, 444. 453 

Westhrope, Elizabeth, 2 

Westhrope, Major John. 2 

Westover. 2. 24, 25, 33, 34, 37, 
38. 41, 44. 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 
55, 57. 60, 73 

Westover MSS., 5, 25 

Wetherstield (Connecticut), 164. 

327 
Whiston, England, 64 
Whitetield, Ceorge, 2(X\ 232 
Wickhams, The, 8S 
William and Mary, 239, 476 
William and Mary College, 5, 

99, 476. 478 
William of Normandy, 34, 201 
Williamsburg (Va.), 5, 471, 476, 

479, 4S3, 4S4, 4S5, 493, 494 
William of Vevan, 376, 377 
Williams Church and Parson- 
age. 405, 407 
Williams College. 336. 37S 
Williams Crest, 37() 
Williams, Eleazar, Rev.. Louis 

XVH., 426 
Williams, Eleazar. 383, 387, 

403, 417, 421 
Williams, Eliakim (i), 383 
Williams. Eliakim (2), 3S4, 392, 
Williams, Eliakim (3), 413 
Williams, Elijah, 422 
Williams, Mrs. Elijah, 422 
Williams, Ephraim, 377 
Williams, Esther, 383, 403, 416 
Williams, Eunice. 3S4, 417, 41S, 

419,421,422.429 
Williams. Mrs. Eunice, 3S7. 38S, 

391, 396, 399, 430 
Williams, Rev. John, 37S, 380, 

387, 3SS, 391," 396, 397, 399' 

403, 404, 407. 409, 410; 413, 

417. 4tS 
I Williams. John (2), 384, 392 



Index 



511 



Williams, John (}), 426 
Williams, Chief Joseph, 430 
Williams,. Mary Hohart Jour- 
dan, 42() 
^Villian1S of renrhyn, }~L) 
Williams, Rieluinl', }~b 
Williams, Robert of Roxburv, 

375. 377. 37!^ 
Williams, Samuel, ^,83, 403,414, 

416 
Williams, Sarah. 423, 42() 
Williams, Stephen, 3S3, 403, 

417.421 
Williams, Stephen W. (M.D.), 

375 
Williams (Surgeon), 425 
Williams, Thomas, 426, 429 
Williams, Warham, 3S4, 403, 

415, 410 



Williams, William, 377 
Williamses, The, 375 
Williamstown, 378 
Willing, "Molly," 77 
Wise, Henry A., 84 
Wister, Charles, I3() 
Withington, Melissa, '}~o 
W\^rthington, Rev. William, 

33-' 
Worthington, Sir William. 32S 
Wren, Sir Christojiher, 47t) 
Wynne, Thomas, 27 
Wythe, Chancellor, 49S, 499 



Yonkers, 239, 240, 251, 268, 271 




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